Laser weeding with an autonomous vehicle

Herbicide application and mechanical weeding are the most common weed control methods worldwide. The use of herbicides has led to unwanted contamination of the environment and increasing occurrence of herbicide-resistant weeds. Mechanical weed control increases the degradation of organic matter, may dry out the soil, stimulate new cohorts of weed seeds to germinate and harms beneficial organisms. Therefore, there is a need to develop more sustainable weed control means. WeLASER is a European research project that aims to merge current technologies to build, assess and push into the market a precision weeding system based on high-power laser sources and autonomous mobile systems with the main objective of eliminating the use of herbicides while improving productivity and competitiveness. Artificial intelligence can identify and locate crop and weed plants, and laser beams deliver high-density energy, which can warm up weed tissue and kill or harm the plants. Given the targeted nature of laser beams, the area exposed for weed control can be reduced substantially compared to other weed control methods. The risk of affecting non-target organisms is low. However, small autonomous vehicles may have limited weeding capacity, and precautions need to be taken as reflections from the laser beam can also be harmful to humans and animals. Based on experience from the project, we present consideration about advantages and disadvantages of using laser technology for weed control.