Not the OP, but I'd just point out that all you should need to do is get the stem above the boiling point of water, which is well below the combustion point.
What wavelength to use for that could be an interesting discussion. Makes me wonder whether you could use masers (microwave lasers) rather than optical lasers for a more efficient "heating the weed from the inside" effect.
Not OP, but my take on this is efficiency and quality will be superior to a human (or will be very, very soon).
Speed of movement / detection / destruction cycle isn't as important as cost per unit of land patrolled - these are things you can easily scale up if the price per device is low enough. Compare & contrast cost of humans.
Right now the dwell time of the laser is slow like in the order of a second per weed. And there can be hundreds of weeds per square metre. So this needs to improve — and there’s lots of good ways to improve it. However, as the parent says, just leave a few bots out there and you easily compete with human operator cost.
I've been thinking about a suite of robots on the residential level that could not only mow the grass and edge it, but also shovel snow, and perhaps eventually prune plants and pick the harvest. Would such a suite (or a base plus a suite of attachments) be practically affordable soon (say, cost less than $5k retail)?
Edit: oops, I guess this should be directed at the small robot company, not the space bots with laser company.
What kind of remote operation/visualization interfaces do you have for deployed systems? Does your company receive the alerts/visuals/notifications or do the farmers that buy from you receive these?
Do you want farmers to eventually be able to operate the fleets you sell them, or would you prefer to sell the entire operation to farmers and manage the fleets yourself?
Farmers may not fix them but they will operate the robots on farm. Already, tractor drivers are skilled operators of GPS controlled semi-autonomous machines. They’ll be the people who drop the robots off, review their task plans, stay in range of their heartbeat, swap implements and refill stuff.
Hi! Would lasers work for Bermuda grass infestations? I am forced to till sections of my organic field to get rid of them and I would like to go no-till as far as possible.
Happy to answer any questions.
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