Based in Sweden, Ekobot is developing autonomous electric weeding robots of the same name that use AI and camera sensors to detect and mechanically remove weeds. The robots also have soil probes and multispectral cameras mounted on them. These capture weeding data, which is processed and analyzed using cloud services to provide valuable insights to farmers. The company claims that its robots help farmers to reduce herbicide usage and save costs by up to 30% compared to manual labor. It also claims that its weeding mechanism has reduced soil disturbance, leading to improved soil health and yields.
Based on field trials in the Netherlands during May to June 2022 on a 2.5-hectare onion field, the robot could perform up to 1,000 strikes per hour, removing 97% of the weeds with up to 99.5% accuracy. The robots could operate only a day on a full charge.
In August 2021, the company partnered with Telia, a Swedish multinational telecommunications and mobile network company, Research Institutes of Sweden, and Axis Communications, a Swedish manufacturer of network cameras and audio devices, to carry out a pilot project to test communications between the robot and mobile networks using 5G technology. The project involved connecting, monitoring, and controlling the robot over a 5G network, due to the large amounts of data generated by the robot’s weeding operation.
As of November 2022, the company had plans to carry out pilot demonstrations for its robots in Sweden and the Netherlands.
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