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The Autonomous AMU-Bot Is a Merciless Weed Killer With LiDAR Scanners and Rotary Harrows

Autonomous vehicles have a variety of applications and agriculture is definitely one of the fields to benefit from technological advancements. The AMU-Bot is an eloquent example of that, making for a useful piece of machinery in orchards, tree nurseries, and vegetable gardens.
AMU-Bot 8 photos
Photo: Federal Office of Agriculture and Food/Fraunhofer
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Weeds are every grower’s nightmare and weed control is a full-time job, especially if you’re in charge of large areas of land. Eliminating them is not optional if you want to have any crops left to harvest. When your crops are growing, they need a lot of nutrients, light, and water. But so do weeds, which take their share of all the good stuff, which is why it is crucial to get rid of them.

Manually removing harmful plants is a time-consuming solution, and herbicides are not a lot better, as they pollute the environment. That’s where the AMU-Bot comes in, a mobile and autonomous robotic system that uses optical sensors to navigate and can remove weeds without using any chemicals. AMU stands for autonomous mechanical weed control in German.

It was developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation in Germany, with the support of the German Federal Office of Agriculture and Food, with Bosch and agricultural robotics company KommTek also pitching in. The AMU-Bot drives between rows killing all the weeds on them, then autonomously moves on to the next row.

Its LiDAR scanner continuously emits a laser pulse as the AMU-Bot moves, in order to find its way and determine the position of the crop rows. While in this stage the bot can’t classify all plants, it can tell apart crops from weeds, removing the latter with its rotary harrows. Its rotating blades are attached to a manipulator with adjustable height.

So far, we have no info from Fraunhofer regarding any plans of mass production of the AMU-Bot.

This autonomous vehicle is just an example of how robotics can be very useful in agriculture. Seattle-based company Carbon Robotics also has one developed for the exact purpose. The Autonomous Weeder is a four-wheeler that uses 150W lasers to destroy weeds, and it can remove up to 100,000 of them an hour.
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About the author: Cristina Mircea
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Cristina’s always found writing more comfortable to do than speaking, which is why she chose print over broadcast media in college. When she’s not typing, she also loves riding non-motorized two-wheelers, going on hikes with her dog, and rocking her electric guitars.
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