Caterra - An alternative to herbicides

Today, the only alternative to herbicides in agriculture is a combination of mechanical hacking, flaming and hand weeding. To make scalable organic farming possible, technologies are needed that greatly reduce the use of manual labour.

Thanks to its laser-based approach Caterra’s robot allows the removal of weeds which are in close proximity to the crop, something mechanical methods are unable to do. Small, lightweight, fully electrical and chemical free!

Project objectives:

1. Develop a fully automated module that detects weeds and removes them with a low-energy laser.
2. Field tests with the module mounted on a suitable platform.
3. Evaluation of continuous weeding as a plant protection practice.