Lukas the robot toils weeding in the fields
By Barb Dybwad 
posted Sep 17th 2005 12:33PM
posted Sep 17th 2005 12:33PM
Why send a human to do a robot's job? Lukas the mobile agricultural robot can take care of weeding those fields for ya. It makes use of onboard infrared cameras and image processing software to distinguish between the good stuff and the evil weeds, and is able to yank out the latter for most crops grown in rows. The PhD project of Björn Åstrand at Halstad University in Sweden, Lukas isn't exactly ready to enter the market just yet, but should be ready to be farmer's new best friend in a few years. Whenever Lukas is finally ready for prime time, we'll be able to rest assured that the planet is safe in good hands, and guiltlessly plug ourselves into the Matrix.
No more chores on Saturday morning!
Hehe, it will steal your crops and start a bakery all on its own!
"You know, we could have these compete against each other pulling heavier and heavier weights!"
"Ol' Jim-Bob used to soup up the argi-bots back behind bio-shed twelve back in ought-five, maybe he can help..."
Cool, I saw this on Tech Tv a few years back on the Screen Savers. It looks promising. (Ah, the good ol' days.... Sigh... Stupid G4 takeover....)
The Swedes do it again.
The number of correct weed pulls pales in comparison to the number of plants you drive over and crush. Hope they figure out how to design the tning so it conforms to whatever the standard row widths are depending on the plant.
anything that reduces the amount of pesticide used to produce our food is a good thing!
"Hope they figure out how to design the tning so it conforms to whatever the standard row widths are depending on the plant."
Yeah i bet u HOPE.......cos ure really a farmer ay? and you are really in the market for one of these thuings?
This sort of thing is meant for comic relief and general interest.....dont take it to serious.
In the future, the only fields that Lukas toils over is the HUMAN DEATH FIELDS ^o^
When I was a teenager in North Dakota, pulling weeds in the sunflower fields was the ONLY job you could get. $3.10/hr. When the crops were very short, it was easier to crawl rather than being bent over all the time, so you'd end up crawling one-half mile down two rows, and then a half-mile back. You'd do about 10-15 miles per day. Did it suck? Of course, but as I said, it was the only job available, so everyone you know did it.
I for one welcome our new weed-picking robot overlords.
If you like this robot, look at http://www.fieldrobot.nl
Here you can read about the Field Robot Contests with the same goal as Lukas at Wageningen University Holland. They were fun. :)