Solar powered, AI assisted robot development to help farmers fight weeds

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A robotics company founded in South Australia is a step closer to turning weed control on large-scale farms on its head. It's launched a tiny solar powered automated sprayer, that uses artificial intelligence to detect weeds.

Transcript

00:00In the mid-north of South Australia, it's business as usual in one of Ben Pratt's paddocks,

00:09as his big boom sprayer blankets a crop of wheat in herbicide.

00:21But in another paddock, a much smaller robotic device is also tackling weeds.

00:30And the forward-thinking farmer hopes it's the first of many miniature sprayers on his property.

00:36For, you know, the last 50 to 100 years, every machine that comes out is getting bigger than the last one.

00:42What we're investing in is maybe a bit of a paradigm shift where if you've got more than one module

00:47and, for instance, just say you've got 10, one goes down, you're still running at that 90% capacity.

00:52Not far away at Kawtawi, in a typical farm shed, alongside typical farm machinery,

01:02are the brains behind Ben's new baby, who are pushing against the idea that bigger is better.

01:10We've got to find a way to lower input costs and get money back in the farmer's pocket.

01:16I think we could bring a whole other system into the mix and robotics seem to be able to provide that.

01:24Jody Kitsky grew up on this sheep and cropping property, driving big equipment and experimenting in the shed.

01:32Not much has changed when it comes to his approach to building things.

01:38We're in the learning game, so you want to learn the most important thing as fast as you can

01:43and do whatever it takes to do that.

01:45It doesn't matter if it's duct tape and zip ties, you just want to sprint it,

01:48you want to find a thing to learn and just run after that.

01:51The duct tape, though, has now been replaced with more solid parts

01:57as they start turning out sprayers for the commercial market.

02:01It does about 10 hectares a day at this speed.

02:04Yeah.

02:05And so you get across this paddock in a week.

02:07So why have you created a slow-moving sprayer?

02:10Because that's obviously not been the focus of spraying historically.

02:14I guess the thinking is by going slower, you're going to do a better job.

02:18And really, when you slow down, you can just be so much more precise

02:22because you can see as we're walking along, it's really easy to go and identify really small weeds.

02:27Yeah, I can see it.

02:28Yeah.

02:31Yeah.

02:32Yeah, yeah.

02:33Yeah.

02:34Yeah.

02:35Yeah.

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