If it works as well as chemicals,that is excellent news. The only thing that bothers me is it runs on diesel-perhaps they could use biodiesel. I wonder how it would be marketed to farmers? Would they pay to have their fields treated by an outside contractor? I can't see the farmer buying one,as the cost would likely be in the millions.

Unless there's a really narrow window for weeding, one machine ought to be able to take care of a lot of fields. Can it also work once the plants are (partly?) grown?

@M_D, why would it be crazy expensive?

Seems like there’d be some significant R&D costs to amortize, but the hardware shouldn’t be expensive at all. A 74 HP engine driving a pickup truck sized platform with some lasers, cameras, sonar sensors and cheap NVIDIA cpus.

In fact, it is reported to be priced similarly to a mid-size tractor or somewhere a bit over $100,000.

Very cool tech.

Seems like their biggest challenge might be the Open Border Lobby since this puts “temporary farm workers” out of a job.

Very interesting machine, but as is the other commenter I am perturbed that it uses diesel - the cognitive dissonance is strong there... I suppose most industrial farms large enough to need or afford one of these (a modern combine already costs up to half a million $USD) would have infrastructure in place for diesel fuel, but wouldn't it make sense for a forward-thinking design like this to be forward-thinking in it's power source as well? Electric with on-board solar panels would seem preferable, but yes, even bio-diesel would be an improvement.

If it cuts down on herbicides, that will be great. These are not good for the food crops or for the people who eat the food. I do wish it could be electrically (battery) powered instead of diesel, though. Maybe someday.

@michael_dowling What's wrong with Diesel? I know it's got a bad rep for emissions and stuff, but at the moment, it's a very practical package. And the little diesel fuel is loads better than the chemicals that get sprayed by the gallons anyway.

This is the future of farming. There is some improvement to be made. First off, this is a single task machine - cultivating young plants, so it has a very short use cycle. Once the plants are large, it can no longer cultivate them. It straddles the rows and has a very low crop clearance. It may work okay for some specialized vegetable cropping, but that is less than 4% of row crop in the US. So it's too big to fit between rows, probably because of the diesel generator. Go all electric to reduce size and complexity. Practically every row crop field has power lines next to it. Figure out how to set up charging stations on the end rows and you need very little battery capacity. The robots should be multi-task like a tractor. That means hydraulics, electrical connections and implement attachment interfaces. Eventually the robots should be able to handle everything from planting to harvest, with the farmer managing robots instead of tediously driving back and forth across the field.

Maintaining some 'cover crop' might be beneficial, so add a bit more video processing and it could differentiate between good weeds and bad ones, and even trim their growth for maximum benefits. It could zap bad bugs too, leaving the beneficials.

Diesel is a good choice for an R&D version. If there's a demand for an electric version, it'll get developed.

paleochocolate, diesel is actually quite toxic and carcinogenic (https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/diesel-exhaust-and-cancer.html#:~:text=Its%20major%20goal%20is%20to,diesel%20exhaust%20and%20bladder%20cancer.). Diesel should be the last resort fuel of choice, unfortunately it's the first though of most farm machinery manufacturers because it's what they have experience with. That will change, but sooner is better than later.

Wall-E the weeder