Everybody loves their food to be clean, and ideally organic. The less herbicides (while retaining the quality of the crop) the better!

Normally, this would mean that the plants would need an abnormal amount of attention, and the crops would be prohibitively expensive.

However, the Swiss company “EcoRobotix” has another solution: Let robots take care of it!

EcoRobotix has developed a solar powered autonomous robot that searches through fields of crops for weeds. It is a rover-like robot that has a camera and AI to identify what plants are not the crops, and then use their arms to administer direct herbicide to them. They have a built in GPS to prevent them from wandering into other fields or roads. These new-age field hands can work up to 12 hours a day! The best part: It can all be controlled from your smartphone.

It is up to 30% cheaper than traditional herbicide administration, and uses up to 95% less of them to begin with!

If this technology were implemented on a wider scale, we could easily see more competitive prices for organic food.

Eric Cawley is an occasional blogger for Gary Stringham & Associates. Gary provides consulting and expert witness services in embedded systems such as robotics. Feel free to contact Gary at 208-939-6984.