Laser weeders: fertilize or kill
Discover more from Earthlings
Laser weeders: fertilize or kill
We’re at a point in human history where autonomous robots and human beings are working together seamlessly to make the world move faster. The hum of technological progression beats harder every day.
Good morning my fellow Earthlings 👽️🖖
Do you remember those viral videos of Amazon warehouse robots picking up shelves and zooming around a warehouse? People went nuts. And then the hype quickly faded—as most innovations do when our expectations move to a higher baseline.
Let’s be clear: we’re at a point in human history where autonomous robots and human beings are working together seamlessly to make the world move faster. The hum of technological progression beats harder every day and it’s sometimes easy to forget the beauty of the technologies evolving our world.
In 2012, Amazon acquired Kiva Systems for $775 million, a young robotics company that gave them ownership over a new breed of mobile robots that could carry shelves of products from worker to worker by reading barcodes on the ground. As of late 2022, Amazon reported having over 520,000 robotic drive units across its global operations reducing the time it takes to fulfill an order by about 50 percent. Innovations like this are just the tip of the iceberg.
Today, we’re going to talk about robots taking on more than just logistics…we’re going to dive into 💥 laser-beam weed killers.
If you’re a Twitter native, you’ve probably seen this video floating around your timeline—if not, you’re in for a treat.
Fertilize or kill
When you think “farming,” what comes to mind?
Probably corn and tractors.
What probably doesn’t come to mind is an intelligent sharpshooter robot that hovers over plants and immediately decides whether to fertilize or kill the plant using precision lasers.
While most agriculture technology (ag-tech) robots help move objects from point A to B, Carbon Robotic’s LaserWeeder™ is the Ironman of Agriculture, shooting lasers half a centimetre in diameter to eliminate weeds upon sight. The result: a process that uses 95% fewer chemicals than traditional farming practices.
“We’re really farming at the centimeter level basis here, so this is allowing us to farm every plant individually.”
Curtis Garner, Founder and CCO of Carbon Robotics
The LaserWeeder remembers every single plant on a farm. As the robot rolls over a field, its high-resolution cameras scan every single plant to create a digital model of the entire farm—and we’re talking about farms that contain millions of plants. The LaserWeeder is essentially building a 3D representation of a farm like a video game, transforming the problem of weeding and fertilization into a model that allows for computation.
Growers have always been able to extract data from their fields, but they’ve been lacking in the ability to analyze that data, develop insights, and most crucially, act on those insights autonomously. Innovations like the LaserWeeder™ offer farms the power of strategic, autonomous farming decision-making.
We’re in the era of superhuman farming.
The industry is heading into what’s known in the farming world as the “4th revolution,” marked by recent advancements in computer vision, AI, and autonomous robots. The previous “Green Revolution” was triggered by the introduction of new technology and policies implemented in developing nations between the 1940s and the 1960s to increase the production and yield of food crops. While the introduction of high-yielding varieties of cereals like wheat and rice led to a significant increase in productivity and helped to improve incomes for farmers and lift many people out of poverty, there were knock-on effects of a reduction in agricultural biodiversity and increased reliance on chemical fertilizers and pesticides that continue to plague our global food supply.
Startups like Carbon Robotics intend to shake up an industry reliant on outdated practices. But it also takes farmers to move the needle as well: American growers like Bolthouse Farms love partnering with startups like Carbon Robotics because building an ecosystem where young companies can come onto the field and trial their technology is the best way to stay on top of the industry’s innovations.
And it pays off: Growers using Carbon Robotics’ tech are seeing up to 80 percent savings in weed management costs, with a 2-3 year break-even period.
In April 2023, the Seattle-based firm announced a $30 million Series C, which followed a 2021 B round of $27 million, bringing its total to-date raise up to $67 million. Sozo Ventures led the round, which also features Anthos Capital, Fuse Venture Capital, Ignition Partners, Liquid 2 and Voyager Capital. The company is on track to deliver LaserWeeder to 17 U.S. states and three Canadian provinces in 2023.
Identifying and killing weeds with AI and precision lasers is just one approach to this problem. It’s fascinating to see unsexy industries like farming draw so much startup interest—the world of innovative weed management has sprouted (sorry) many other competitive innovations:
Electric weeding (E.g., crop.zone)
Mechanical autonomous weeding (E.g., Aigen)
Smart spraying (E.g., Blue River at John Deere)
Physical destruction (E.g., Harrington Weed Destructor)
LED seed exposure (E.g., seed destroyer referenced above)
Drone spraying (E.g., Rantizo)
📰 In Other News
Astranis will launch a dedicated internet satellite for the Philippines next year: Space-based internet startup Astranis inked a new deal to launch and operate a dedicated satellite for the Philippines, which will provide enough bandwidth to connect up to 2 million people. Astranis is partnering with satellite services provider Orbits Corp, which will buy the capacity with its sister company HTechCorp., a Philippine internet service provider (ISP). Astranis CEO John Gedmark said in a blog post that the Philippines is a uniquely challenging country to cover with traditional connectivity technologies, like fibre or microwave towers. “There are over 20 typhoons in the Philippines every year, and given the archipelago’s position in the Ring of Fire, other natural disasters often test the resolve of Filipinos, whether they live in Metro Manila or a rural community like Barangay Caagutayan,” he said. (TechCrunch)
Rocket Lab takes another step towards reusability on their latest Electron launch: Rocket Lab’s “Baby Come Back” mission is scheduled for launch on July 14 from the company’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. The rocket will place into orbit Telesat’s LEO 3 spacecraft, a technology demonstrator for its future Lightspeed constellation. The Electron’s first stage will descend under a parachute and splash down to be recovered by a ship. (Space News)
Scientists discover huge, heat-emitting blob on the far side of the moon: This anomaly is likely caused by a buried mass of granite, a rarity outside of Earth, with the heat likely emanating from a dead volcano that hasn't erupted for 3.5 billion years. "This is more Earth-like than we had imagined can be produced on the Moon, which lacks the water and plate tectonics that help granites form on Earth," lead study author Matt Siegler of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, said in a statement. (Live Science)
🤖 AI Art of the Day
That’s it for today, Earthlings.
As always, thank you so much for reading—we’ll see you next time! 🧑🚀