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Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

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Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#271

Post by timbre1234 »

stonemetal12 wrote: post #144
1970-01-01 wrote: post #96

If they can make it a little bit more robust, there would be a huge market for removing toxic plants. I was just quoted over $1000 to remove poison ivy from a 500 sq ft. wooded area of property. My satisfaction was not guaranteed.

This most likely wouldn't be safe for poison ivy removal. Burning poison ivy creates a toxic cloud. As much as poison ivy isn't fun, poison ivy in your throat and lungs is even less fun.

You need to think more "hit it with enough energy to break cell walls and kill the weed" and not "burn it in fire like a SciFi movie.

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#272

Post by Igelau »

esrh wrote: post #101
piyh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drones do not seem like a logical step for me. I'm not a laser expert, but seems like the energy storage needed to kill hundreds to thousands of something with light is heavier than flying would realistically allow. Wheels and tracks are what farming is built around, no need to literally reinvent the wheel here.

To me that message implied weed recognition and marking with drones followed by destruction with the cube.

Ah, the classic "Death Cube and Tracker Drone" design pattern. DCTD for short.

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#273

Post by smiley1437 »

riskable wrote: post #151
nemo44x wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about putting them on an electrified wire? String a grid of them over the fields for motion and for power. Power the grid with solar.

It stands to reason that if you're going to be running wires over the entire field you wouldn't need flying drones so much as you would need cameras on wheels (like they have at football stadiums). If the camera sees the correct spectra for a known weed it can drop down and get a closer inspection then mark the spot or just burn the weeds with an attached laser. I assume the crawler is necessary because--in order for…

Yes totally agree on the benefits of early detection — easier to identify eg. once the desired crop is larger than, say 10mm, then just fire the laser on anything green that is less than 2mm, adjust those parameters as required as the crop matures, also getting them early means less laser energy required to kill it, longer battery life, larger acreage covered

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#274

Post by Minor49er »

ninju wrote: post #248
Minor49er wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of a laser, I wonder if it would make sense to use positioned lenses and have the robot focus the sun's rays on each weed to burn it out. Though that probably would cause fires and would only be usable during certain hours of the day.

> would only be usable during certain hours of the day Limiting usage to when the light will be strong enough to be focused would seriously limit the hours of usage Maybe adding solar panels to harness solar energy to offset ICE emissions would be a consideration

That woukd be a good idea, though wouldn't that notably increase the cost of the unit as well?

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#275

Post by abakker »

hu3 wrote: post #234
esrh wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me that message implied weed recognition and marking with drones followed by destruction with the cube.

That's my understanding too but what about precision? Both the drone and the ground robot would need milimiter precision geolocation to coordinate otherwise the laser can miss the weed.

RTK GPS has +/- 3cm Lat/long precision. That gets you very close, and then with a confirming camera, you could aim and fire.

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#276

Post by burnished »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #211
gdubs wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the weed. Overall you’re going to put pressure on it. With conventional fields like the ones pictured in this article, there’s often no ground cover. If you have a ground cover (say, clover) and you’re defoliating the weeds all the time, then you have a chance. But some weeds, like invasive blackberries here in the Pacific Northwest, are extremely resilient and will shrug off defoliation.

Thanks for the info! > But some weeds, like invasive blackberries here in the Pacific Northwest, are extremely resilient and will shrug off defoliation. How does that work? I thought all plants (by definition?) need photosynthesis to stay alive in non-dormant states. Do blackberry plants have some way of getting energy other than photosynthesis in their leaves?

They grow these enormous and very resilient root balls under ground. I was taught that the most efficient way to kill a blackberry bush was to remove the structure above ground, locate a central stalk that leads under ground, and stick the end in kerosene or gasoline I don't remember which. That gets sucked up into the root ball and kills the plant. Never done it myself, mind.

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#278

Post by intergalplan »

hackeraccount wrote: post #209
marcus_holmes wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder at what point it becomes economically feasible to breed crops that are more distinguishable from weeds? After all, this is what we did with chemical weedkillers.

I wondered about the corollary - at what point does selective pressure create a weed that's indistinguishable from a crop?

I doubt weeds will be able to maintain advantages that let them compete well to begin with, while also evolving to evade all of a series of detection techniques that will be added as they evolve their way around the first few. To stick around they need to survive well outside of fields, too, and I'd expect detection-resistant varieties to become increasingly inefficient at surviving in areas where they're not being lasered to death.

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#279

Post by linuxftw »

burnished wrote: post #262
linuxftw wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those neurotoxins are perfectly safe. You can drink a cup of glyphosate and you'll be fine. There are no long term side effects, and sure the only studies are carried out by the manufacturer, but we know we can trust them. Sound crazy? Now, pretend it's an injection.

Hey, I get it, needles are scary. You don't need to make stuff up to justify a completely rational fear of getting jabbed with a needle.

I'm not concerned about the needle, only what's coming through it, approved by an entirely captured regulatory body.
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