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FEATURE MACHINE BUILDING, FRAMEWORKS & SAFETY igus delta robot arms manipulate RootWave high-voltage electrodes for killing individual weeds


Image copyright: Jon Severn


The Dick prototype robot uses GPS, artificial intelligence, onboard cameras and high-voltage electrodes to locate and kill weeds


ROBOTS DEFEAT WEEDS IN FIELD BATTLE Engineers at Small Robot Company (SRC) are working


with igus to incorporate cost-effective delta robot arms in a novel agricultural robot that locates and kills individual weeds in fields of cereal crops


I


n a field of crops such as wheat, weeds compete for nutrients and moisture and,


if no action is taken, yields decline drastically. Herbicides have been the farmer’s ‘weapon of choice’ for decades, but there are three key problems: cost, increasing herbicide resistance, and destruction of ‘good’ weeds as well as ‘bad’ ones. Agritech startup Small Robot Company (SRC),


however, is taking a fresh approach to cereal farming by replacing large tractors with small, lightweight, robots designed to tend crops on a per-plant basis without compacting the soil. Instead of using herbicides to treat large areas, SRC’s robots kill weeds one by one.


TOM SRC is working on three robots named Tom, Dick and Harry, with Wilma the controlling artificial intelligence (AI). Tom – which is production- ready and will be surveying fields this autumn – is an autonomous surveyor, equipped with high-resolution cameras and GPS navigation. Terabytes of data collected by Tom are uploaded to Wilma for classifying every plant as a crop or weed. As different species of weed can be identified, the farmer can choose to kill some and leave others. Once the farmer has decided which species


to eliminate, Wilma instructs Dick, the weeding robot. Currently Dick is in prototype form and has been demonstrated, literally, in the field. Dick is equipped with GPS for navigation and RootWave devices that ‘zap’ weeds with high-voltage electricity. Cameras onboard Dick confirm the positions of individual weeds and edge AI directs the RootWave electrodes to the weeds. When the voltage is applied, a current flows through the weed to the earth, with the electrical


8 JUNE 2021 | DESIGN SOLUTIONS


circuit completed via a probe driven into the soil from beneath Dick. The entire weed is killed, including roots, to prevent regrowth. The decomposing weeds return nutrients to the soil.


DICK When designing Dick, one of the challenges facing the engineers was how to manipulate high-voltage (10-12 kV) electrodes quickly and precisely. The manipulators had to be cost- effective, resistant to dust, mud and moisture, able to withstand vibration, and robust enough to survive the electrode striking stones or other hard objects. The engineers concluded that delta robot arms would be suitable, but they could only find one type that met the technical requirements and was affordable: the igus drylin delta robot arm. Dick has five igus delta arms and these


Passing an electric current through the weed kills the entire plant,


including the roots


are proving to be remarkably tough. Their tribopolymer bearings need no lubrication, which avoids any risk of lubricants contaminating the soil and, if needed, the bearing liners can be replaced without dismantling the arms. The lightweight delta arms minimise


the energy required for manipulating the electrodes and for traversing Dick across the field, helping to maximise battery life. Reducing weight also helps Dick to exert less ground pressure than a human footprint. Each igus delta arm features three belt-driven actuators with integral encoders for closed-loop


control. In the event of a ‘crash’, the position of the RootWave electrode can be re-established without the delta arm having to zero itself. Furthermore, the igus robot controllers are straightforward to connect with the AI in Dick’s control system. Unlike some other electrical equipment on the prototype, the igus controllers and Ethernet communications have been unaffected by the RootWave’s strong electromagnetic fields. Andy Hall, head of


prototyping at SRC, commented: “Precision is a strong feature. The milestone we’ve hit is that we can now take action at the plant level. Using artificial intelligence, the robots can recognise the weeds in the [camera] shot and target the robotic arm onto those weeds. At that point we can do anything we want. Our robotic platform incorporating the igus arm could have many different technologies bolted on – and the world’s our oyster on that.” Other tasks Dick could


perform are spot-spraying with fertilisers and targeting slugs with nematodes.


..AND HARRY What of Harry, the third member of the agri- robotic trio? To complement Tom the surveyor and Dick the weeder, Harry will be the world’s first robotic drill for planting cereal crop seeds. With no need to plough the field first, Harry plants individual seeds and records exactly where they are so Wilma can create a per-plant map. If Tom subsequently finds a seed has not germinated, Wilma can instruct Harry to plant a replacement in exactly the right position. When Tom, Dick, Harry and Wilma are


available commercially, farmers will simply pay a subscription for using the robots on a Farming as a Service (FaaS) basis.


igus www.igus.co.uk / DESIGNSOLUTIONS


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