Listen and read 22 Farming with Tom, Dick and Harry - Thấm Tâm Vy

Thẩm Tâm Vy, Feb 13th, 2020 LISTEN AND READ 22

LISTEN AND READ 22

Agriculture Farming with Tom, Dick and Harry

WEST DEAN Using cameras and AI, agricultural robots are on the rise SLOWLY, BUT SURELY, a spidery machine about the size of a golf cart swings an electrode over a tray of plants. Every few seconds there is a small puff of smoke as a weed keels over, having been zapped with a high voltage. The device doing the zapping is a prototype weeding robot developed by the Small Robot Company, a new firm operating out of an old munitions depot near Salisbury, in south-west Britain. Such machines, called “agribots”, are appearing in many shapes and sizes from a variety of companies. Muddy tracks from other prototypes lead into the Small Robot Company’s workshop, where a row of 3D printers make bright orange components out of plastic. That makes parts easier to find should they fall off in a field, which is a sure sign that farmers are at work here, with roboticists and scientists. Weed control is essential for improving crop yields, but it is getting increasingly difficult. Some weeds are becoming resistant to herbicides, which face stricter regulation and in some cases are being banned. On top of that, many consumers want organic produce. And labour shortages mean that repeatedly tilling the soil to disrupt weed growth using a mechanical hoe towed behind a tractor is costly, time consuming and not always practical. Weeding is a chore that most farmers would happily hand to robots. But for a robot to do the job properly it must be able to distinguish a weed from what is being cultivated. That is becoming easier with advances in computer vision. Artificial-intelligence (AI) algorithms are getting better at classifying images. Some phone apps can now identify a plant from just a photo. Robots equipped with cameras will not only weed but automate other farming roles. Agribots, driverless tractors and other types of farm automation form an industry that is expected to grow at around 23% a year and to be worth more than $20 billion by 2025, according to Markets and Markets, an American research firm. Having spotted a weed, there are several ways to try to kill it. The Small Robot Company’s weeding agribot, called Dick, electrocutes them. The robot’s wheels work like an electrode to make contact with the ground while another electrode is moved to touch the plant. This makes a circuit through the plant and creates heat, effectively boiling the plant’s cells and killing it from stem to root instantly. It can take several thousand volts, although this is adjusted according to the type of weed. The remnants of the plant can then be left to naturally decompose into the soil. Shocking Dick will work with two other agribots, Tom and Harry, all of them electrically powered. The idea, says Ben Scott-Robinson, one of the company’s co-founders, is that Tom will routinely scan fields to a level of detail of just a few centimetres. Using its cameras and other sensors, the spindly four-wheel-drive machine can cover about 20

hectares a day, mapping the health of every plant, along with soil conditions. When weeds appear, Dick will be dispatched to zap them. Harry, the third agribot, is under development for tasks such as seeding and applying precise levels of fertiliser to each plant, a process known as microdosing. Tom will go into commercial production in August. Early versions are already in use on some farms in Britain, including the Leckford Estate, which is run by a large supermarket chain. Dick will begin trials later this year. Tom has already learnt how to spot broadleaved weeds and is being trained in the more difficult art of identifying grass-type weeds, which look similar to cereals. Unlike many vegetables, cereals are grown more densely in rows, which makes the mechanical hoeing of weeds a tricky operation. Armed with Tom’s algorithms, Dick should be able to zap grassy weeds in cereals accurately. The company will offer its robots …