WeLASER - SUSTAINABLE WEED MANAGEMENT IN AGRICULTURE WITH LASER-BASED AUTONOMOUS TOOLS

A growing global population demands increasing food production, which requires increasing use of pesticides and fertilizers. About 130 million tons of herbicides per year are used in Europe alone that persist in the environment, destroy non-target plants and beneficial insects for the soil and produce health effects in animals and humans–cancer, birth defects and endocrine disruption. Moreover, existing herbicides become more and more ineffective due to the evolution and spread of herbicide-resistant weeds. WeLASER solution focuses on non-chemical weed management based on applying lethal doses of energy on the weed meristems using a high-power laser source. An AI-vision system discriminates crops from weeds and detects the position of the weed meristems to point the laser on them using a laser scanner. An autonomous vehicle carries these systems all over the field. A smart controller coordinates these systems and uses IoT and cloud computing techniques to manage agricultural knowledge. This technology will provide a clean solution to the weeding problem and will help to decrease significantly the chemicals on the environment.

https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101000256