Robots and AI seem to be all over the news, and for good reason. They can do some cool stuff, but it remains to be seen whether they can do it all.
The question is: can robots do gardening? Robots can assist with many tasks in the garden, including weed control, lawn care, and cleanup. Weeding robots may use weed whackers, sunlight, or lasers to kill weeds. Lawn care robots mow automatically, like a Roomba for grass. Some robots can even blow snow or leaves for you.
Some gardening robots are much more expensive than others, so cost is something to consider if you want to buy one of these machines for yourself.
In this article, we’ll talk about various types of gardening robots and how they can help you maintain your garden in less time.
Let’s get started.
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Gardening Robots
There are all sorts of gardening robots available: ones that take care of weeds, one that mow grass, and even one that blows snow and leaves! I’m sure there will be more in the future that can tie up your tomatoes or harvest your potatoes, but we’ll see.
For now, let’s start with robotic weeders.
Garden Robot Weeders
Looking for an automatic weeding robot? Well, there are a few options out there. Some prevent weeds or cut them down, while others burn them away once they appear!
Tertill Weeding Robot
The Tertill weeding robot is a household model, intended for small gardens. It can control weeds in a garden with an area of up to 200 square feet (for example, a 10 foot by 20 foot plot).
If you have a larger garden, you can separate it into sections of 200 square feet and assign a different robot to each of the sections.
Tertill has two basic ways that it controls weeds:
- First, Tertill uses wheels to dig up a little bit of the top layer of soil. This prevents weed seeds from germinating or damages sprouted weeds so they can’t continue growing.
- Second, Tertill uses a string trimmer to “weed-whack” slightly larger weeds. The weeds are left behind on the soil to decompose – they won’t have seeds at such a young stage, so they won’t create more of themselves! If the weed regrows, the Tertill will come by and trim it again. You will need to replace the string eventually, just like for any weed whacker.
Tertill has sensors that keep it from hurting your plants. If a plant is tall enough, the Tertill will sense it and move along without hurting the plant.
Don’t worry if you have smaller plants to protect! Just use the metal guards (included with the robot) to make an enclosure around the young plants you want to protect.
The robot will detect the metal guards and keep moving along, leaving your plants alone. Once the plants are tall enough for the Tertill to detect them, you can remove the metal guards to give your plants more room to grow.
You can expect the Tertill to stop a lot while it is working. In fact, it remains still most of the day.
It charges using solar power, then moves around a bit to do some work, then recharges and repeats this cycle. You can still charge it with a USB port if it completely runs out of power, though.
The Tertill has 4-wheel drive, but it can still get stuck, so be sure to check on it once in a while.
If you are having trouble maintaining your garden (especially a large garden), you might want to give this a try!
Solar Incinerator Weeding Robot
This weed incinerator robot is also solar powered, but its method of dealing with weeds is a little more focused. First, the robot’s camera takes pictures and its software identifies weeds (using machine learning data that it was trained on in the builder’s garden).
Then, the robot moves its lens into the proper position, based on the location of the weed and the sun. Finally, the robot concentrates sunlight through the lens onto the weed, burning it to a crisp (eventually).
The builder of this robot suggests that you watch the robot while it works – and keep it away from any flammable material! It is a prototype, so you probably won’t be able to find it in stores just yet.
Laser Weeding Robot
This laser weeding robot is designed to reduce weed control costs for larger farming operations. The machine is on guide rails and use motors to move around fields by itself.
The robot uses cameras and AI to find weeds to destroy. It then uses a laser to focus on the weeds and burn them.
Maybe someday, there will be a smaller, lower-cost version of this laser weeding robot available. For now though, it has a cost of over $12,000 – so you might need to save up for a while to afford this one.
Garden Robot Mowers
Not to be outdone by automatic weeders, robotic mowers can take care of your lawn and keep the grass at a respectable height – all without much input from you.
Note that these machines are best for established lawns that are not too long and without too much of a slope. They might not be able to navigate a steep slope, so watch out!
Many robotic mowers can run for an hour or more on a single charge. Some will return to the charging station when the battery gets low, recharge, and then go back to work.
Some robot mowers also let you schedule the time you want the lawn cut. They also have smartphone control so you can turn them on or off remotely.
You may need to install boundary and guide wires for the robot so that it knows where to go (and where not to go). You can also find robot mowers with safety features like collision and lift sensors, which stop the machine (or the mower blades) when the mower is lifted.
No matter where you live, it is a good idea to keep your mowing robot somewhere out of sight, to avoid the risk of theft.
Another Intriguing & Versatile Garden Robot
I wanted to mention one other robot here that can perform lots of tasks for you in the yard. Yarbo is a garden robot that can mow your lawn, throw away snow, and blow away leaves.
Its modular base connects to different pieces for lawn mowing, snow blowing, and leaf blowing. This one doesn’t need a perimeter cable to keep it in the boundaries you want, since it uses GPS and other tech for that.
The Yarbo is pretty smart! The lawnmower has automatic obstacle avoidance. You can set the leaf blower to adjust for wind speed and direction, too.
You can even set the distance and direction for the snow blower, so the snow ends up where you want it.
Personally, I think it would be cool to see a robot that can plant seeds, deal with pests, and harvest produce from the garden. I don’t think they are too far off in the future!
Conclusion
Now you know what is out there as far as gardening robots for weeding, mowing, and vacuuming.
I hope you found this article helpful. If so, please share it with someone who can use the information.
You can learn all about how AI can be used in gardening here.
If you want to learn other ways to pull weeds without bending or kneeling (and without robots), check out this article for ideas.
To find books, courses, seeds, gardening supplies, and more, check out The Shop at Greenupside!
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~Jonathon