An Organic Weed Control Prototype using Directed Energy and Deep Learning

Abstract

Organic weed control is a vital to improve crop yield with a sustainable approach. In this work, a directed energy weed control robot prototype specifically designed for organic farms is proposed. The robot uses a novel distributed array robot (DAR) unit for weed treatment. Soybean and corn databases are built to train deep learning neural nets to perform weed recognition. The initial deep learning neural nets show a high performance in classifying crops. The robot uses a patented directed energy plant eradication recipe that is completely organic and UV-C free, with no chemical damage or physical disturbance to the soil. The deep learning can classify 8 common weed species in a soybean field under natural environment with up to 98% accuracy.