Ecorobotix, an artificial intelligence-based precision agriculture company, said it has added a lettuce thinning algorithm to its ARA Ultra High Precision Sprayer, joining the company’s already existing portfolio of broccoli, carrot, cauliflower and more.
“What’s really unique about the lettuce thinning algorithm is that it thins and weeds at the same time, which is amazing,” said Chrissy Wozniak, U.S. marketing and communications manager for Ecorobotix.
Wozniak said the company saw an unmet need with lettuce growers who already used the machine for other crops.
“Fundamentally, the machine is just one machine, but we do have many different algorithms,” she said. “It goes across the ground and cameras take pictures, and then within a quarter of a second, it decides whether that is a crop to spray or a weed to spray.”
The company said its ARA uses mathematical precision to define plant spacing, ensuring consistent stands. This lettuce algorithm is available through an additional license subscription for customers using the ARA sprayer for weeding and other crop protection plants.
Wozniak said Ecorobotix is as precise as 2.5-by-2.5 inches. As the company adds a new AI algorithm, the development team takes hundreds and hundreds of photos to help the device understand what the crop looks like and what it doesn’t look like.
“They just run the machine over hundreds and hundreds of acres of the crop so that we can teach the AI what that crop looks like and what we’re looking for,” she said.
Wozniak said Ecorobotix aims to meet the needs of its growers, and the company wants to get the equipment into more fields since crops and weeds vary slightly depending on growing regions.
“We’re working on cabbage,” she said. “Cabbage is a huge crop, especially here in the southeast. There’s lots of cabbage, and so we’re really excited about that one, too.”
