Photo: Laura Taylor / Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Hort Innovation: Weeds may well have met their match, with new robotic prototype RIPPA (Robot for Intelligent Perception and Precision Application) being trialled on-farm this week in Gatton, Queensland. Developed for the vegetable industry, RIPPA has the ability to collect data using sensors that can map an area of a crop and detect weeds, as well as highlight foreign objects. It can also use the data to estimate yield and fertilise crops.

The University of Sydney’s Australian Centre for Field Robotics director of innovation and research Professor Salah Sukkarieh said that … the robot has a collection of sensors and sophisticated algorithms that can detect weeds from amongst the crop as well as foreign objects such as a stone, glass or metal.

Read the full article at the Hort Innovation website