Smart Farming: This Weed-Hunting Robot Is Taking to the Fields

By ZDNet

Small Robot Company (SRC) is a pioneering UK-based agri-tech startup whose Farming-as-a-Service offering is based around a trio of lightweight robots — Tom, Dick, and Harry — that respectively monitor, feed/weed, and seed arable crops, directed by an AI system called Wilma, writes Charles McLellan at ZDNet. The idea is to create high-resolution crop maps, enabling precision husbandry with minimal environmental impact.

SRC has now launched its monitoring robot (Tom), which will deliver a trial commercial weed-mapping service. The company also announced that the non-chemical precision weeding component of the feeding/weeding robot (Dick) has reached Technology Readiness Level 4, pending early field trials in 2020.

SRC demonstrated Tom in action at the National Trust’s Wimpole Estate in Cambridgeshire (one of 20 farms currently trialling the company’s systems), with ZDNet in attendance. Also on show was the weed-zapping ‘electricide’ technology from another UK startup, RootWave, which will be adapted for installation in a prototype ‘Dick’ robot.

Continue reading at ZDNet.