https://www.startengine.com/offering/greenfield-robotics
Interesting video
Over time, this will catch on. There are so many environmental problems with herbicides that finding a non-chemical way to control weeds will grow more attractive especially if this form of weed control is effective against invasive non-native weeds which have become resistant to our chemical control.
> this will catch on
Yeah, when it gets cheaper than chemicals & applying them.
>> when it gets cheaper
It's kind of interesting in that both options are, of course, open to automation. I suspect that automated 'cide application is the easier problem to solve, but long-term, weeding makes more sense.
Similar to the energy market - even if the cost of a geothermal plant might seem higher, the predictability of fuel cost (zero) is a big seller to an investor trying to plan. You still can't know your sell cost for your crop or electricity, but know the cost of inputs takes a huge set of variables off the table.
>Interesting video
Too sloooow. Even if a fleet of them had solar/batteries and autonomously ran 24/7, how many weeks would it take to do 3000 acres?
>> Too sloooow.
Honestly, when I see comments like that, I think back to how wrong I was about digital cameras. Resolution is too low for serious photography. It will never catch on. I did vaguely have an idea that of course resolution would improve, but I made to basic errors
1. I thought resolution would increase slower than it did
2. I thought people cared about resolution
So now I always try to add the word "today" to thoughts like this.
"Too slow today."
It looks like this is mostly proof of concept technology aimed mostly at raising enough money to fund the Gen 2.0 version... which will be faster or cheaper or both