By Krishna Ramanujan
Shooting lasers at foes is the stuff of science fiction, but now, a few farmers are fighting one of their greatest nemeses with a new technology – laser weeders.
Commercial laser weeders are large machines that pass over crop rows and take photos. A deep learning computer program analyzes the images to distinguish weeds from crops. Then, the lasers zap the weeds to kill them. The machine’s computer program also allows farmers to prioritize types of weeds, such as smaller plants that are close to the crop that may be difficult for humans to see and eliminate, for the lasers to target.
The machines have mostly been used on the West Coast, but now a new study has tested how effectively they can work on the East Coast, where soils, crops, rainfall patterns and weeds can be different.