Herbicide usage reduced 95% in trials of Asterix

The first fully automated farming robot that uses a deep learning neural network to map its way around weeds and crops, and carefully drop a precise amount of herbicide directly onto the weed, without touching the crop or soil.

Fri, 13 Dec, 2019 - 18:00

Stephen Cadogan

Herbicide usage has been reduced 95% in trials of Asterix, the first fully automated farming robot that uses a deep learning neural network to map its way around weeds and crops, and carefully drop a precise amount of herbicide directly onto the weed, without touching the crop or soil.

This light-weight, autonomous robot sprayer is equipped with a patented, vision-based, ultra-high precision nozzle system to deliver herbicide droplets.

It is said to be the only solution on the market that successfully addresses weeding challenges while reducing herbicide usage so greatly.

Asterix is a state-of-the-art machine learning platform that is trained to differentiate the appearance of intertwined crops and their weeds, so that it applies herbicide only to weeds.

This enables the use of new environmentally safe weeding agents in both conventional and organic agriculture.

For example, agents such as acetic acid (of which vinegar is a diluted form) or urea can be used to chemically burn even herbicide-resistant weeds.

The robot deals with weeds even if they emerge and develop simultaneously with the crop.

Asterix is seen as an excellent opportunity for precision farming, to increase food production and quality while reducing herbicide usage, environmental impact, and costs.

This makes for a fast payback, boosted by reduction of manual labour.

It also reduces the problem many farmers have with soil compaction. The light-weight Asterix can be used in a wet field when tractors cannot, for timely treatment of weeds, relatively independent of the weather.

The Asterix project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

There was a presentation on the project at last week’s EU Agricultural Outlook conference, a key annual gathering of European stakeholders discussing the future of agriculture in Europe and the challenges which lie ahead.

With sustainability from farm to fork one of the conference topics, the success of the Asterix project was welcomed.

The company behind the Asterix project is Adigo, based at Langhus in Norway, involved in industrial design, machine design, cybernetics, informatics and thermodynamics. The project has also received funding from Innovation Norway, Grofondet, and Forskningsrådet, the Norwegian research council.

Norsk Landbrukssamvirke gave the project their innovation prize in 2017.

The Asterix project was described at the EU Agricultural Outlook conference by Roma Gywnn, Vice President, International Biocontrol Manufacturers Association, which represents the biocontrol technologies industry behind “green”, innovative and effective technologies for sustainable agriculture.