A slew of AI weed killers are on the horizon and have the potential to disrupt the multibillion dollar pesticides business. Among them is Swiss-company ecoRobotix and its weed-killing robot. It's solar-powered and can kill weeds for 12 hours straight without an operator at the helm. Through artificial intelligence, cameras and two robotic arms, the table-looking robot sprays a dose of herbicide on weeds but not the crops. EcoRobotix uses 20 times less herbicide than traditional methods that spray entire fields.
Currently, farmers are forced to shell out cash for large amounts of herbicide that is indiscriminately sprayed over their crops – 90% of which have already been genetically modified to resist the weed-killing chemicals, says Reuters. The seed and pesticide industry is currently worth about $100 billion, and thanks to lucrative business models such as this, $26 billion of it alone is from the herbicide industry. The 4-wheeled, solar-powered robots have up to 95% accuracy and their selective spraying methods could reduce herbicide use by up to twenty times.
Credits:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/04/weed-killing-ai-robot.html
No comments:
Post a Comment