Nov 22, 2022 06:00:00

What is an ``agricultural sniper robot'' that maps fields and snips and thins out unnecessary crops?

The world population has

surpassed 8 billion on November 15, 2022, and is expected to exceed 10 billion by 2050. In order to solve the pressing energy and food problems, farmers are introducing robots and doing large-scale cultivation, but a new robot that automatically sprays pesticides on agricultural crops has appeared.

Sniper robot treats 500k plants per hour with 95% less chemicals | Challengers-YouTube


An agricultural robot developed by Verdant Robotics looks like this.

The part in contact with the ground expands left and right.

Spread to cover crops.

The robot can map fields with multiple cameras and automatically detect planted crops. By taking a 'digital copy' of a vast field, it is possible to accurately grasp which crops are planted where.

This makes it possible to detect weeds and good quality seedlings.

Then, it automatically sprays pesticides on unnecessary crops and automatically performs 'thinning' to leave only necessary crops.

As a result, it is possible to save 95% of the amount of pesticides compared to the conventional method of scattering pesticides over the entire field. The robot covers about 17,000 square meters per hour and can deploy lasers in addition to pesticides, so it is said to be much more efficient than existing

laser weeding robots .

It is also possible to perform three-dimensional mapping with CAD.

It seems that even in fields where tall plants such as apples are grown, pesticides can be sprayed horizontally. With this technology, it is possible to automatically perform tasks such as spraying pollen only on flowering buds.

In addition, the high accuracy of the mapping makes it possible to handle intercropping, such as planting other crops between crops.

Gabe Sibley, CEO of Verdant Robotics, said, “Farmers are often perceived as stereotyped and unwilling to change, but in our experience this has not been the case. They're looking right at it and they're pulling us in. What they want is a system that processes data and does the work automatically.It's a very rewarding job.' .