Oblivious to the punishing midday heat, a wheeled robot powered by the sun and infused with artificial intelligence carefully combs a cotton field in California, plucking out weeds.
As farms across the United States face a shortage of labourers and weeds grow resistant to herbicides, startup Aigen says its robotic solution 鈥� named Element 鈥� can save farmers money, help the environment and keep harmful chemicals out of food.
鈥業 really believe this is the biggest thing we can do to improve human health,鈥� co-founder and chief technology officer Richard Wurden told AFP, as robots made their way through crops at Bowles Farm in the town of Los Banos.
鈥楨verybody鈥檚 eating food sprayed with chemicals.鈥�
Wurden, a mechanical engineer who spent five years at Tesla, went to work on the robot after relatives who farm in Minnesota told him weeding was a costly bane.
Weeds are becoming immune to herbicides, but a shortage of laborers often leaves chemicals as the only viable option, according to Wurden.
鈥楴o farmer that we鈥檝e ever talked to said 鈥淚鈥檓 in love with chemicals鈥�,鈥� added Aigen co-founder and chief executive Kenny Lee, whose background is in software.
鈥楾hey use it because it鈥檚 a tool 鈥� we鈥檙e trying to create an alternative.鈥�
Element the robot resembles a large table on wheels, solar panels on top. Metal arms equipped with small blades reach down to hoe between crop plants.
鈥業t actually mimics how humans work,鈥� Lee said as the temperature hit 32 degrees Celsius under a cloudless sky.
鈥榃hen the sun goes down, it just powers down and goes to sleep; then in the morning聽it comes back up and starts going again.鈥�
The robot鈥檚 AI system takes in data from on-board cameras, allowing it to follow crop rows and identify weeds.
鈥業f you think this is a job that we want humans doing, just spend two hours in the field weeding,鈥� Wurden said.
Aigen鈥檚 vision is for workers who once toiled in the heat to be 鈥榰pskilled鈥� to monitor and troubleshoot robots.
Along with the on-board AI, robots communicate wirelessly with small control centers, notifying handlers of mishaps.
Aigen has robots running in tomato, cotton, and sugar beet fields, and touts the technology鈥檚 ability to weed without damaging the crops.
Lee estimated that it takes about five robots to weed 160 acres of farm.
The robots made by the 25-person startup 鈥� based in the city of Redmond, outside Seattle 鈥� are priced at $50,000.
The company is focused on winning over politically conservative farmers with a climate friendly option that relies on the sun instead of costly diesel fuel that powers heavy machinery.
鈥楥limate, the word, has become politicized but when you get really down to brass tacks farmers care about their land,鈥� Lee said.
The technology caught the attention of Amazon Web Services, the e-commerce giant鈥檚 cloud computing unit.
Aigen was chosen for AWS鈥檚 鈥楥ompute for Climate鈥� fellowship program that provides AI tools, data center power, and technical help for startups tackling environmental woes.
鈥楢igen is going to be one of the industry giants in the future,鈥� said AWS head of climate tech startups business development Lisbeth Kaufman.
鈥業 think about Ford and the Model T, or Edison and the light bulb 鈥� that鈥檚 Kenny and Rich and Aigen.鈥�
