Robotic Weeding

 
 


Principle of cycloid weed hoe


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Here is a video of the microspray trials (2.3MB DivX).

 Robotic weeding is the embodiment of phytotechnology as it deals with the care of individual plants. It is divided into two main areas; physical and chemical methods

Physical methods

Hako autonomous tractor with cycloid weed hoe

 

 

Mechanical weeding

RoboWeed was started in 2003 to develop methods to reduce the amount of energy used to weed organic crops. A presentation of inter-row weeding can be found here.

Chemical methods

Micro-sprayers

 

Instead of spraying the whole field for weeds, it would be better to intelligently target herbicide on to just the weeds.

Stage One: identify the weeds with active shape recognition
Stage Two: micro spray herbicide just on to the weed leaf.
Stage Three: put both of these technologies onto a small robot (API)

 

Page updated April 2009