British agricultural technology start-up Small Robot Co. has invented a mobile delta autonomous mobile robot that can weed agricultural fields without using chemicals.
The wheeled robot is equipped with three delta robots that independently position “zappers” to kill weeds using electricity. The zappers were supplied by another British agritech start-up RootWave.
The weed-killing robot, called “Dick,” works in concert with a monitoring robot, “Tom,” that uses machine vision and artificial intelligence to identify weed patches and transmit their locations to Dick. Dick is then dispatched to “seek and destroy” the weeds along the route provided by Tom.
Dick is the world’s first autonomous mobile robot that can destroy weeds individually without the use of chemicals. The technology represents an alternative to blanket spraying of herbicides, which is wasteful and can adversely affect the environment.
In the future, Tom and Dick could work together for other applications, such as spot spraying, spot fertilizing or slug killing. Another autonomous robot, Harry, is being developed for planting operations.
Delta robot arms from igus were selected for the machine because of their precision, light weight, low-cost and self-lubricating operation. More commonly used in industry for pick-and-place operations, the delta robot maneuvers the zapper into place using an integrated motor and encoder, linked to Dick’s master controller. Many competing delta robots cost more than $25,000, while the igus delta is approximately $6,400.
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