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> Also, it sounds like they're using cameras, where it's concievable that other future sensors could be more efficient. Bit of a pedantic note: What other sen
by Balgair 6y ago
> Also, it sounds like they're using cameras, where it's concievable that other future sensors could be more efficient.
Bit of a pedantic note:
What other sensor could you use?
I'm grasping at straws (pun not intended) to figure out any other modality that could work as well in a giant field of psuedo-randomly mixed plants with the wind blowing chemical signatures all about.
- SamBam 6y agoI think the question was just visible light cameras vs other wavelengths. With visible light, all you have to go on is small differences in shades of green and shape of the leaves. With other spectra you'd have more cues.
- metaobject 6y agoPerhaps he just meant IR sensors? Also, I wonder whether UV sensors would be helpful.
- MengerSponge 6y agoI assume they mean "visible spectrum" when they say cameras, because that's what most off-the-shelf systems are tuned to. A spectrometer is a single pixel camera, I guess, but it isn't being used with imaging optics, and it isn't being used to stitch together a photograph. In a general case you could embed some version of GFP instead of glyphosate resistance. Then you can set the system loose (within the field, lol) to actively interrogate plants, zapping intruders that fail their scans.
- kickout 6y agoDon't think there will be a need to bio-tag weed versus no weed. Current tech and sensors can probably get to 2-3 9s worth of accuracy (bonus, you don't care about accidently hitting/killing a false positive or two, there are many plants if this is a commodity crop)
- dylan604 6y agoI wonder if Monsanto seeds will start producing a signature that could be recognized. This will help in 2 ways. First, more easily identify those pesky farmers using their seeds without proper licensing. Second, help the machines know what plants to keep, and the ones to remove.
- kickout 6y agoMonsanto.....doesn't exist anymore....Laughable people hate on Monsanto/Bayer for protecting their IP, but when big tech does it it's just good business
- MengerSponge 6y agoBut if you add a bio-tag, you can make your system look like ED-209 and recreate this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYUnp-x0SDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYUnp-x0SDE
- chasd00 6y agoi'm sure i'm oversimplifying but if you can reliably identify your crop then everything else is a weed. Maybe put some kind of GMO marker that makes what you want to keep stick out like a sore thumb then you just nuke everything else.
- Frenchgeek 6y agoIf you know where your crops are, everything else is a weed.
- cameron_b 6y agoThis is the traditional approach and it really blows my mind that so many hammer-syndrome AI/ML/flavor-of-the-month VC spenders haven't simply gone to see for themselves what works on farms. It probably doesn't even register to the casual observer, but planting a careful row of tomatoes with the root ball in a particular direction is a fit for the cultivator tool to come by and turn the soil up on the stem of the young, but now established plant. That's actually the "weed control at scale" developed in conjunction with the tractor. I'm not a fan of modern conventional agriculture. The abuse done to topsoil is terrible, and we need better systems. But new systems need to keep their eye on the ball and the ball is a John Deere pulling a 40-foot cultivator across a field while the "operator" reads twitter ( or <verb>s Clubhouse ) only looking up to mind the turns. Everything starts somewhere, but just because your tech has ML and Laserbeams doesn't mean it passes the tool/toy test.