| Gantry frame and wheel drives | What it does. A welded steel gantry straddles five crop beds on four driven wheels, so the working tools ride above the crop while the tyres run in the furrows. Aluminium strut like the profile listed here mounts the lighter equipment on the deck. | Why it is hard. The wheels have to hold the same furrows for hundreds of metres at a crawl, on soil that is soft in one place and baked hard in the next. Wheel slip too small for a driver to feel still moves every laser target, so the machine also follows each weed across camera frames. | Catalogue examplesload capacity 1,996 kg · mass 95.7 kg · tread depth 24.6 mm input voltage 24 to 80 V · output current max 350 A profile width 45 mm · slot width 10 mm · mass per metre 1.6 kg |
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| Light-sealed hoodWorking at 01 light | What it does. A closed hood spans the beds. It shuts out the sun, so the cameras see every plant under the same light, and it keeps laser light and its reflections inside the machine. | Why it is hard. Sunlight through any gap overpowers the lighting and shifts plant colours, and a gap large enough for light to leave lets laser reflections out. The hood has to seal against uneven ground without dragging through the crop. | Catalogue examples No catalogue example listed. |
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| Laser modulesWorking at 04 aim, 05 fire | What it does. A row of laser modules, each aimed by a steering mirror across its own strip of bed, burns the growing point of each weed the cameras have found. | Why it is hard. The growing point can be a few millimetres across, and the machine keeps moving while it fires, so each shot has to land where the target is at that moment rather than where the camera saw it. | Catalogue exampleswavelength 1,070 nm · power 300 W · power tunability 100 % power 500 W · wavelength 1,080 nm · modulation 50 kHz The fibre lasers listed are examples of industrial laser sources, built for cutting and welding metal. A weeder chooses its laser wavelength for how well plant tissue absorbs it. |
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| Weed cameras and lightingWorking at 01 light, 02 see, 09 ship | What it does. Downward cameras beside each laser photograph the bed under steady LED light, and a model marks every weed. | Why it is hard. A young weed and a young crop plant can look almost the same. Dust, wet leaves, soil type, and crop stage all change what the model sees from one field to the next. | Catalogue examplesresolution 1,920 × 1,200 · frame rate 40 Hz · sensor size 1/1.2 in |
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| Compute and uplinkWorking at 03 decide, 06 log, 07 return, 09 ship | What it does. A sealed computer runs weed detection and aims every laser, a CAN bus reaches the drives, and a cellular modem connects the machine to the people who run it. | Why it is hard. The time from a camera frame to a laser firing has to be short and steady. At 1 km/h, 10 ms of delay moves the target about 3 mm, roughly the width of the growing point. The field often has weak cellular coverage, so the machine has to keep working when the link drops. | Catalogue examplesAI throughput 275 trillion operations/s · memory 64 GB · memory bandwidth 204.8 GB/s downlink rate max 300 Mbit/s · uplink rate max 50 Mbit/s · transmit power 23 dBm supply voltage 1.7 to 3.6 V · data rate max 8 Mbit/s · bus fault voltage 58 V One embedded module is listed as an example. Seven cameras and seven lasers likely need several of them, or a larger computer. |
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| Generator and power distribution | What it does. An onboard diesel generator in a weatherproof enclosure feeds a distribution box that powers the lasers, the cooling, the computers, and the drives. | Why it is hard. Each laser switches between idle and full power every time it fires, several times a second across the row. The generator and supplies have to handle those swings without a voltage dip that resets the computer. | Catalogue examplesinput voltage 90 to 264 V · output voltage 48 V · output current max 21 A Seven 300 W lasers at about 30 percent efficiency draw about 7 kW on their own, before the cooling and the drives, so a real machine carries a generator of many kilowatts or draws power from a tractor. The catalogue has no generator row of that size. The power supply listed is an example of one stage inside the distribution box. |
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| Chiller and radiator | What it does. A chiller pumps coolant through the water-cooled laser modules and the computer, and sheds the heat through a radiator. | Why it is hard. The lasers and processors turn several kilowatts into heat in a hot, dusty field. The water-cooled nLIGHT laser listed under the laser modules is rated to run in surroundings from 10 to 40 °C. A radiator clogged with dust loses capacity gradually, until the lasers shut themselves down mid-row. | Catalogue examplestemp −55 to 150 °C · accuracy max 0.1 °C · resolution 16 bit The temperature sensor is an example of what watches the coolant. The catalogue has no chiller row. The IPG laser listed is air-cooled, so it would add its own heat to the air inside the machine. |
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| Row guidance | What it does. Two satellite antennas on masts at the front corners give position and heading, an inertial sensor fills the gaps, and a forward camera watches the rows ahead so the machine steers along the beds. | Why it is hard. Even with corrected satellite position, the rows sit where the planter put them, which a different tractor drilled on a different day. Steering has to follow the crop as it grew. | Catalogue examplesaccel range max 24 g · gyro range max 2,000 °/s · supply voltage 2.4 to 3.6 V The inertial chip is an example sensor. Field steering uses a combined satellite and inertial receiver, and the catalogue has no receiver row. |
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| Safety chain | What it does. Emergency stop buttons at every corner, a hood interlock, and a warning beacon cut the lasers and the drives and warn anyone nearby. | Why it is hard. A class 4 laser can blind a person with a reflection. The hood must be proven closed before any laser fires, and every stop has to cut power in hardware without waiting on software. | Catalogue examples The catalogue has no safety-rated part. A real hood interlock uses a certified two-channel switch wired to a safety relay and to the laser's own interlock input. |
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