Bosch start-up, Deepfield Robotics, has developed a new machine that can analyse and weed crops. The technology, named Bonirob, will make plant breeding more efficient and reduce the environmental impact of crop farming.

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• Bonirob can analyse crops to save time in plant breeding
• Automated weeding negates the need for harmful herbicides
• Project is the creation of Bosch start-up, Deepfield Robots

Bonirob, which is the size of a compact car, can monitor how well new crop varieties grow, whether they are resistant to pests and how much fertiliser and water they need. Currently, this is a painstaking manual process done by plant scientists in a laboratory.

The agricultural robot also makes every-day work in the fields easier. Bonirob can distinguish between crops and weeds based on the shape of their leaves and can eliminate weeds mechanically, rather than with weed killer. Unwanted plants are simply rammed into the ground with a rod. Using machine learning, Bosch researchers highlight weeds in a large number of image files so that Bonirob can accurately identify them.

Professor Amos Albert, general manager of Deepfield Robotics, explains: “Over time, based on parameters such as leaf colour, shape, and size, Bonirob learns how to differentiate more and more accurately between the plants we want and the plants we don’t want.”

In the coming years, more efficient plant breeding will play an important role in increasing agricultural output. It is estimated that yields will have to increase by three percent each year to keep up with population growth.

Bonirob is the product of a public joint project funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture that saw experts from Bosch, Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences, and the agricultural machinery manufacturer Amazone join forces.

At the 2015 European Robotics Forum in Vienna this spring, Bonirob won a 2015 euRobotics Technology Transfer Award. In September, the German Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture Christian Schmidt presented the agricultural robot with the Deutscher Innovationspreis Gartenbau, a national award for innovation in horticulture. Bosch has since assumed full responsibility for the tool.