Nearly every week, we hear news about the latest successes and failures in driverless vehicles. But we hear little about how other industries are developing this same kind of technology. One industry heavily involved in researching and developing artificial intelligence, or AI, is agriculture. Companies are experimenting with high-tech tools that can help farmers save time and money, while reducing environment-harming chemicals.
One of the companies is ecoRobotix of Switzerland. It created a robot equipped with AI and cameras to identify all plants on a farm. The robot has four wheels to carry itself through the fields in search of weeds. Computer-controlled arms then lower and spray the weeds with small amounts of herbicide(除草剂). Company officials say the robot can fully operate on its own for up to 12 hours a day while being powered by the sun. It uses the same kind of sensor and positioning technology used to guide driverless vehicles. A farmer can also control the equipment through a smartphone.
The co-founder of ecoRobotix, Aurélien Demaurex, says the farm robot can kill weeds with 20 times less herbicide than traditional methods. This is because the system uses exactly the right chemical amount in the exact place required to kill the weeds. Currently, farmers spread weed killers over massive areas to destroy unwanted plants.
Another company developing farm robotics is California-based Blue River Technology. The company has a system called "See & Spray", which it claims was the world's first smart sprayer. The system—which is connected to the back of a tractor—is also equipped with AI to identify and chemically kill only the weeds. It can also spray chemicals on wanted plants to help them grow. Ben Chostner, vice president of business development for Blue River Technology，explains in a company video that See & Spray technology uses the same deep learning methods used in facial recognition. "The first time the machine saw pigweed, it didn't know what kind of plant it was. But we taught it—by giving it tens of thousands of examples of that pigweed—and now it's an expert in pigweed. "
