Aigen hopes to complete a prototype crop-weeding robot by the end of summer, later adapted for use on other crops, reports Potatonewstoday. While it can be used on onions and sugar beets.
The robot will be equipped with wheels and comparable in size to a shopping cart. The robot's small mechanical arm is capable of grabbing and pulling weeds; the robot emits an electrical discharge to kill the larger ones.
“We are trying to make it as small and light as possible so that one person can lift it and put it in the back of a pickup,” says Neufeld, one of the designers of the mechanism.
New technologies will play an increasingly important role in addressing the shortage of agricultural labor.
“Perhaps over the next few decades we will see a lot of such autonomous means everywhere,” comments his colleague Ryu. “Technology is advancing so fast these days. We must accept them to make our lives easier."
“It's also very beneficial for ecological ecosystems,” he continues. “Farmers are going to cut back on chemicals.”
Since April, Rue and Neufeld have traveled to the sugar beet and onion fields almost every five days (depending on the weather) to photograph the weeds. They manually pushed a cart equipped with an accelerometer to take two photos of the ground per second while the cart was in motion. All photos are entered into a database that the robot will use to distinguish between weeds and crops.
“I am also thinking of developing an education and training module to help farmers operate the ground robot safely and intelligently on the farm,” Ryu said.
Researchers are not yet ready to answer questions about how much each robot will cost to build or how much land an individual robot can cover in a given time.
Ryu has applied for an Idaho Global Entrepreneurship Mission grant through the Idaho Department of Commerce to fund the development of a similar autonomous robot that will take field photographs on its own. If the IGEM grant is funded, this robot could also be used to ground check some additional research involving drones.
One of these projects, funded by the Idaho Wheat Commission, involves flying a drone with multispectral sensors to detect the presence of wireworms in wheat fields. Ryu has also explored the possibility of using multispectral sensors to detect early symptoms of onion diseases.