The key to successful gardening is weed and pest control. Currently that task falls to either manual labor or through the magic of chemistry. Those two methods are also the hallmark of successful farming as well.
A recent ASME article profiled an autonomous weeder introduced by company located in the northwest US, Carbon Robotics. This weeder is designed for commercial farming to kill weeds using lasers. Weeds are located by high-tech sensors and “zapped” by a platform of eight laser modules. Operating 20 hours per day, it is capable of killing 100,000 weeds per hour. That is a staggering number for sure. And the learning curve for this autonomous robot is short. Through a program interface you just tell its imaging system “This is a carrot, don’t shoot it. This is a weed, shoot it.”
Since this robot from Carbon Robotics is on a scale for commercial farming, it needs to be powered by diesel and hydraulics. My wife is an avid gardener and would love to have one of these, and scaling it down would most likely allow it to be powered by batteries. Not sure you will see one these “weed killers” in your local garden center any time soon, but if one does become available for home use, I’m sure we will be one of the first to own one. And I’ll be spending a great deal of time programming it, “This is a rose, don’t shoot it, this is a weed, shoot it! – Dr. Tom
