Longtime Maker Labs member Greenfield Robotics, the leader in scaling regenerative farming and offering Robots-as-a-Service to broadacre farmers, was recently featured in an article in The Guardian. Our Maker Labs team has been working with them on the design and build of their vehicle control unit.

Could robot weedkillers replace the need for pesticides?

By Betsy Reed, Editor, Guardian US

Could robot weedkillers replace the need for pesticides? The robotic services allow farmers to rely less on chemicals. ‘This solves a lot of problems,’ workers say

On a sweltering summer day in central Kansas, farm fields shimmer in the heat as Clint Brauer watches a team of bright yellow robots churn up and down the rows, tirelessly slicing away any weeds that stand in their way while avoiding the growing crops.

The battery-powered machines, 4ft (1.2 metres) long and 2ft (0.6 metres) wide, pick their way through the fields with precision, without any human hand to guide them.

Brauer, a former California-based tech executive who moved back to his family farm in central Kansas after his father developed Parkinson’s disease, sees the robots as critical tools to help farmers reduce their reliance on chemicals and be more protective of their health and the environment.

His Greenfield agricultural technology company now builds and programs its robots in a shed behind an old farmhouse where his grandmother once lived. Twenty farmers are signed up for the robotic services this season, and the company hopes to weed 5,000 acres (2,023 hectares) this year.

Read the full article here.