Technology is revolutionizing every industry. Even those that we never thought about have been touched and the beneficiaries are loving it. For instance, a farming robot was recently launched.
A normal farmer can handle an acre a day. In a month, they’d have weeded 30 acres if they work daily. This machine can do that in just a day or two. The smart weeding machine is an interesting invention that saves time and money, especially if you have several acres of land that you use for farming.
But how does this work? How possible is this? Imagine acres of land having planted crops and weeds at the same time. The machine must be so smart to pick out the weeds and leave the wanted plants. The technology that was used to make this happen must be out of this world.
How it works?
The weeding robot uses a laser to identify and destroy weeds. The machine has been designed to only pick out weeds and spare the wanted plants.
It does so smartly and eliminates unwanted plants fast enough. This is a great solution for farmers who face a lot of challenges dealing with weeds.
The unwanted plants are known to starve wanted plants of water and food. The plants end up dying or growing without sufficient nutrients. That means suffering losses even before hitting the market.
I’m certain no farmer plans for losses when they start planting. But somehow these weeds show up and ruin everything. That is the first problem.
The second challenge is in taking care of the weeds. You will need to spend a lot of time and money to eliminate the weeds. If one worker can spend a whole day just to weed one acre of land, you can imagine how many you will need if you do large-scale farming.
The machine will take care of all that. Besides, it is a robot and so you won’t have to deal with days when your workers would want to stay home for rest or because of sickness. As long as it is well maintained, the machine will perform its work well.
At the end of the day, you’d have saved time and money. Besides, you would have taken care of the weeds early enough to keep the plants safe from starvation.
Workers may spend more time during weeding. By the time they’re getting to the other end, the damage would already have been done. That is why the machine is the best replacement and a great invention from Carbon Robotics.
The Weeding Mechanism
The smart machine is a cube-like structure on wheels. It moves along the rows of plantations as it scans the ground. The robot has about 12 cameras to do the scanning.
It has been made smart to tell a weed from the rest of the plants. This is possible through Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Once it scans and confirms a plant is a weed, it releases Carbon (IV) oxide and kills the unwanted plant. It can do this for hours nonstop. According to reports, the robot can get rid of 100,000+ unwanted plants in just 60 minutes.
If that’s the rate, just imagine what it could do in a day. That means hundreds of acres of land could be covered within no time. It is approximated it could cover about 20 acres a day and more than 500 in a month.
If you have a 1000-acre piece of land, you only need two of these machines to complete the wedding in a month. That is serious coverage and you’d have saved a lot of money in the process.
Benefits of the machine
- Fast
Humans are not robots. They need food and rest breaks. That means more time for the weeds to act on the plants. Well, this machine does not need that.
All you have to do is to ensure that it is in the best mechanical state to do the work. Besides, you won’t have to deal with labor shortages that also slow down work.
Moving with speed means efficiency. That is a guarantee that your plants will be free from weeds as fast as possible. You will end up with a good harvest that translates to more profits.
- Wide coverage
Other than moving fast, the robot covers a lot of ground. It works 20 to 40 times more than a human being. In a month, the rate increases as human workers tend to be slower with an increase in work and time.
The machine can weed an average of 18 acres a day. With ten of them, you will cover close to 200 acres in a single day. That’s super wide!
For a large-scale farmer, this is a good deal. The crops will be taken care of as soon as they need protection from weeds. And as such, they will return the right profits as expected.
- High performance
Human workers may drop in performance with time. As exhaustion sets in, their performance drops. This may mean not taking care of all the weeds. By the time they’re done weeding, some of the left weeds would have started reproducing already.
The consequence is a reduced harvest. That will translate to lesser profits. With time, the land will lose fertility. It may not happen immediately, but in a span of 10 to 20 years, the damage would already have been done.
The high-performance robot has no such limitations. It works effectively and gets rid of all the unwanted plants. As a result, the land will retain its fertility and produce enough food.
Shortcomings
The machine cost the manufacturers millions in research and design. Construction cost even more. That money has to be recovered and that means the robot will be sold at a high. For a small-scale farmer, it may be too expensive to purchase the machine.
That notwithstanding, no one can doubt the machine’s ability to excellently perform weeding. This is another reminder that the future is AI. It is a great invention that will change how farming is done. It will also inspire more innovations in the industry.
See a video of this robot in action or read about them here.
