Farms produce the food that everyone depends on, but the work behind it is difficult and time-consuming. Farmers have to plant seeds, remove weeds, and harvest crops, often across huge fields. Increasingly, robots are being designed to take on some of these tasks.
Many of these machines drive slowly between rows of plants using cameras and sensors that act like eyes. The camera can recognise an individual plant and decide whether it is a crop or a weed. This means a robot can pull out or spray only the weeds, leaving the healthy plants untouched.
The benefits can be significant. When a robot removes weeds precisely, the farmer needs far fewer chemicals, which is better for the soil and for nearby rivers. Some robots also water plants individually, giving each one only what it needs and saving large amounts of water. In many countries there are simply not enough people willing to do farm work, so robots may help fill that gap as well. Farmers still make the important decisions, but they now have powerful new tools working alongside them.
