www.foxbusiness.com
AI comes to the farm: New technology tackles acres of weeds quickly by using robotics and lasers
Carbon Robotics CEO spoke of his farming technology, the LaserWeeder, and what it offers farmers. AI powers the unit as it uses robotics and lasers to rid farms of weeds quickly.
Science & Tech
Farmers interested in a fast, accurate way to rid their fields of weeds have a new option in the AI space. Carbon Robotics is now shipping its LaserWeeder to farms around the United States; the machine uses the power of lasers and robotics to rid fields of weeds.
Weeds are one of the most "tedious, time-consuming and challenging" elements of farming, Carbon Robotics told Fox Business via email.
The LaserWeeder can eliminate over 200,000 weeds per hour and offer up to 80% cost savings in weed control.
Carbon Robotics CEO and founder Paul Mikesell "knows farmers and has a lot of friends who are farmers," he said.
He decided to use his background in computer science, AI deep learning and business to create the LaserWeeder, he told Fox Business in a recent interview.
"We grow a fair amount of vegetables up here between Washington, California, Oregon and Idaho," said Mikesell, whose company is in Seattle.
The "match that lit the fire" in developing the LaserWeeder was realizing that "this venture capital money that is going into AI and technology — none of it was flowing into agriculture, and I didn't understand why," he said.
Calling it a "huge gap," Mikesell decided to develop an AI-powered agricultural tool to identify and remove weeds on a large scale.
The LaserWeeder is a 20-foot-wide unit comprised of three rows of 10 lasers that are pulled behind a tractor.
Thirty lasers are at work as the unit travels across a field destroying weeds "with millimeter accuracy, skipping the plant and killing the weed," said Mikesell.
The LaserWeeder "does the equivalent work of about 70 people," he continued.
He noted that the tool employs a "process of thermal energy. Thermal energy cell disruption is what's happening at the plant level." (SEE the LaserWeeder at work in the video below.)