How it works

FarmDroid FD20 removing weeds automatically in an onion field in Germany

AUTOMATIC SOWING AND WEEDING OF CROPS

The area used for ecological agriculture keeps growing worldwide, and conventional farming is under its own pressure too: herbicide-resistant weeds are spreading, and access to herbicides is getting more and more difficult. Across the industry, there’s a rising need to automate weed control without chemicals.

FarmDroid was developed to automate weed control between the rows and in the row, close to the crop. In ecological agriculture, weeding is often done through tiring, costly manual labor: the labor costs per hectare are high, the work is exhausting, and a general shortage of manual labor makes it difficult for farmers to grow crops economically.

Conventional farmers face a different version of the same problem. Herbicide resistance makes chemical weed control less reliable every season, while regulatory pressure keeps narrowing which herbicides are available at all. Mechanical weeding avoids both problems: there’s no chemical mode of action for weeds to resist, and no spray to restrict. With FD60 bringing that same GPS-based weeding to larger fields and bigger-seeded crops like maize and beans, it’s becoming a realistic alternative to spraying for conventional farms too, not just a fit for organic ones.

FarmDroid FD20 seen from the side on a sugar beet field with a farmer checking its work with skies and windmills in the background
FarmDroid FD20 seen from behind on a field with black soil
FarmDroid FD20 seen from the front on a sugar beet field with sugar beet in the foreground
Ecological farmer sitting underneath the FarmDroid FD20 robot on a sugar beet field

How it works

With FarmDroid FD20 or FD60, sowing and weeding of crops is performed fully automatic, both between the row and in the row. Since FarmDroid sows the crops itself, it knows the exact position of every seed, and it thus knows precisely where to clean, and more importantly where not to clean! The robot is autonomous, it operates completely on its own with minimum surveillance. In case of any deviations, FarmDroid stops by itself and notifies the farmer that it has stopped. This ensures the farmer that the field work is done correctly.

Setting up the robot is super easy:

  1. Mark the corner points of the field and mark obstacles such as trees and power poles.
  2. Choose your desired number of headlands.
  3. Choose your preferred sowing distance, i.e., distance between the crops in the row, and set the sowing depth.
  4. Press START.

Now your FarmDroid is ready to go – that simple!

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