This article is more than 1 year old

Nvidia: Pssst... farmers. Need to get some weeds whacked?

Jetson-powered sprayer turns GPU-flinger into weed-whacker

HPC blog While there are always vehicles on the show floor at GTC17, it would seem this is the first time an actual John Deere tractor has been in the mix. But the tractor wasn’t the point, it’s what was attached to the tractor that might be interesting for rural types.

Weeds are the bane of farmers as they cut down on crop yields. The traditional way to get rid of weeds is to spray the whole field with herbicides and other weed killing chemicals. When you’re spraying the whole field, you’re also spraying the food crop.

Chris Padwick from Blue River Technology shows off the tech in the video below.

Youtube Video

It’s a Nvidia Jetson powered sprayer that "sees" both the crops and the weeds. Via deep learning, it knows the difference between the two, and understands that its mission is to assassinate the weeds.

The gadget will then - if everything works as advertised - apply a finely aimed and measured squirt of your herbicide of choice directly onto the weed – not the crop. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like