This video shows our new vision guided experimental sprayer spot treating volunteer potatoes with herbicide in commercial onion crops grown by Parrish Farms. The machine has been designed and built jointly by ourselves and our sub-contractors Solutions for Research as a development platform for our spot spray technology.
Three cameras each view a 1.8m wide bed and identify weeds based on a combination of characteristics including size, shape, colour and position relative to crop rows. Target weeds are then tracked down through the image until they pass under an array of nozzles. The appropriate nozzles are then switched on in the manner of a big ink jet printer so that weeds get just an adequate dose, whilst minimising the risk of crop contact. The forward speed for this level of precision is limited to 5kph by the speed of our specially designed solenoid operated nozzles and the processing of images from three cameras on our cab mounted console.
We have been working on vision guided spot spraying for over 12 years now in parallel with our work on mechanical weeding, which shares much of the technology. The work is ongoing and we hope to continue to build on these capabilities.
13 июл 2020
