Said to be the only commercially available machine of its kind on the market, the LaserWeeder from Carbon Robotics uses a combination of vision systems, artificial intelligence and robotics to eliminate weeds from around 100 crops.
The cameras monitor the ground and identify each plant, using computer learning to differentiate between the crop and the weed in real time. Once the weed is identified, a 240w diode laser targets the growth point of the weed and uses thermal energy to kill.
It’s available in working widths from 2.7m up to 6.4m, made up of modules which contain two lasers, three high resolution camera, two graphic processing units and 20 high-intensity LED lights.
The largest model can cover around 1.21ha/hr, and the key benefit, according to the company, is the accuracy of the lasers, enabling it to destroy weeds both inter and intra-row, destroying up to seven weeds/sec even when they are growing millimetres away from the cash crop.