TechTour: Weeding Row Crops with Robots

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Imagine if robots could both identify and destroy weeds. Well, Bosch Deepfield Robotics is well on its way to making that dream a reality.

The company, only one year old, has developed a four wheel multi-purpose robotic platform called BoniRob. It navigates along plant rows, running on batteries or connected to a generator, logging data, or destroying weeds as it goes.

Related: The Future is Now With the Greenbot Driverless Tractor

“It’s the idea of bringing a combination of robotics technology and computer vision to the field,” says Rocco Tschakarow.

The BoniRob was initially an effort to count plants, but as it developed, the company realized the potential for differentiating between crops and weeds. They fitted BoniRob with a stamping actuator, and the platform can now identify, and mechanically destroy weeds in the field.

In this episode of the Techtour, RealAgriculture’s Shaun Haney speaks to Tschakarow at Agritechnica in Hanover, Germany. The duo talk about the evolution of BoniRob, how it functions and how it could be distributed.

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