Farming – Using artificial intelligence, agricultural robots are on the rise

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Using artificial intelligence, agricultural robots are on the rise

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The device doing the zapping is a prototype weeding robot developed by the Small Robot Company, a new firm operating out of an old munitions depot near Salisbury, in south-west Britain</a>.
And labour shortages mean that repeatedly tilling the soil to disrupt weed growth using a mechanical hoe towed behind a tractor is costly, time consuming and not always practical.
Weeding is a chore that most farmers would happily hand to robots.
Robots equipped with cameras will not only weed but automate other farming roles.
The Small Robot Company’s weeding agribot, called Dick, electrocutes them.
The robot’s wheels work like an electrode to make contact with the ground while another electrode is moved to touch the plant.
Dick will work with two other agribots, Tom and Harry, all of them electrically powered.
When weeds appear, Dick will be dispatched to zap them.
Harry, the third agribot, is under development for tasks such as seeding and applying precise levels of fertiliser to each plant, a process known as microdosing.
Tom has already learnt how to spot broadleaved weeds and is being trained in the more difficult art of identifying grass-type weeds, which look similar to cereals.
Unlike many vegetables, cereals are grown more densely in rows, which makes the mechanical hoeing of weeds a tricky operation.
Armed with Tom’s algorithms, Dick should be able to zap grassy weeds in cereals accurately.
This business model, reckons Mr Scott-Robinson, will demonstrate to farmers that the cost of using agribots will be competitive with other weed-control measures and provide additional benefits, such as being chemical-free.
Dick’s zapping system is supplied by RootWave, another small British company, based near Leamington Spa. RootWave, which calls the process “electricide”, already makes a hand-held version for spot weeding

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