Three robots have been entrusted with clearing a field of weeds by zapping them with electricity. So, seeds can be planted there.
Small Robot Company created Tom, Dick, and Harry to help with weed control without the need for harmful chemicals or labor-intensive machinery.
Since 2017, the company has been developing autonomous weed killers. And in April of this year, the company released Tom, its first commercial robot. Three fields in the United Kingdom had used Tom. Meanwhile, all other robots are just prototypes waiting to be tested.
Small Robot proclaims Robot Tom can scan 20 hectares (49 acres) per day. Tom will gather data that will be used by Dick, a “crop-care” robot, to eradicate weeds. Then, robot Harry plants seeds in the weed-free soil.
Once the whole system is implemented, the company claims that farmers might see a 40% reduction in expenditures and a 95% reduction in pesticide usage.
“Our system allows farmers to wean their depleted, damaged soils off a diet of chemicals,”
— Ben Scott-Robinson, Small Robot’s co-founder and CEO
The Zapping Technology For The Weed Killers
Small Robot collaborated with another UK business called RootWave to create the zapping technology.
“It creates a current that goes through the roots of the plant through the soil and then back up, which completely destroys the weed,” says Scott-Robinson. “We can go to each individual plant that is threatening the crop plants and take it out.”
“It’s not as fast as it would be if you went out to spray the entire field,” he says. “But you have to bear in mind we only have to go into the parts of the field where the weeds are.” Plants that are neutral or beneficial to the crops are left untouched.
This method of precision farming, in which each individual plant is tallied and tracked, is known as “per plant farming” by Small Robot.
Sources: CNN, Small Robot Company