Overview
Pesky weeds may produce up to thousands of seeds per plant every season, and compete against the crops or nutrients and affect growth. The resilience of weeds also sees them capable of germinating and growing in very season of the year causing problems. It is therefore a must for farmers to regularly clean out the weeds by hand or schedule herbicide sprays to minimize, if not terminate weeds' growth.
Weeding by hand
Herbicide application
But going into the field exposes the farmer under the weather and subjects them to possible insect/ snake ites, also it requires a large quantity of manpower and hours.
Solar panel weedbot
Distinguish plants vs weeds
With the aid of technology, solar panels coupled with intelligent AMR systems have been developed to help farmers get rid of weeds. The aim of the solar panel is to extend the AMR’s operation time, reducing the frequency each AMR needs to return to station to charge. The AMRs are capable of identifying the weeds in the field via the connected camera, and arm extensions with nozzles can accurately aim and target the weeds. With its extended operation time, the weedbots are able to cover a greater area and is directed or navigated via GPS. The intelligent AMR system with laser can operate 24/7 and eliminate up to 100,000 weeds per day.
Challenges
The intelligent AMR system helps solve some of the pain points farmers may encounter in the field. However, challenges of deploying solar panel intelligent AMR systems under the weather remain.
First, the system implemented must withstand in-vehicle conditions such as shock and vibration; it also endure weather conditions like hot sunny days so the panels can take advantage of the green solar power, and wet rainy days. While in the field, the air quality can get quite dusty, and when entered into the system may cause immediate operation problems.
Solution
Our customer utilized Neousys NRU embedded systems that offer AI processing power to distinguish weeds from plants, and accurately apply herbicides to treat the weeds. The Neousys embedded system utilizes NVIDIA Jetson SoM with up to 275 TOPS AI computation power while consuming a maximum of 25 – 35W of power, offering efficient AI computation/ power consumption ratio, making it ideal for long operating durations in the field. When coupled with solar panel, their operation times can be significantly extended before having to return to the charging station to top up. This allows them to cover greater land areas.
For deployment onto an AMR that works on a farm, the Neousys embedded NRU system is built MIL-STD-810H certified to withstand shock and vibration. So when out in the field and moving about on the farming soil that can constantly tilt the AMR left and right, the Neousys embedded system remains unaffected. And capable of operating in true wide temperature environments, it is also unphased by the temperature discrepancies from morning to night on the open land. Last but not least, Neousys have systems that are IP66 rated for water and dustproof so they can be deployed into more demanding environments.
The combination of shock/ vibration resistance, true wide temperature operation, water and dustproof make Neousys embedded NRU systems the ideal choice for demanding agriculture environments.
