The Solix Sprayer was designed by Brazilian/American agricultural technology company Solinftec and will be manufactured by McKinney in Indiana. Like Solinftec’s existing Solix Scout robot — which inspects and reports crops but doesn’t spray them — it’s powered by four onboard solar panels.
As the Sprayer moves autonomously back and forth across the planted field, it uses a suite of integrated sensors to scan every plant it passes “root to leaf”. If the onboard Alice AI system determines that the plant is a weed it will selectively apply herbicides to it.
The robot also generates a digital map of the field and shows where weeds are detected and treated.
According to Solinftec, a single Sprayer robot can manage up to 100 acres (40.5 hectares) of farmland per day, depending on field shape and topography. Additionally, the Sprayer can operate 24 hours a day by utilizing a lighting system and batteries charged by its solar panels. And because the robot is much lighter than a tractor pulling a “smart” weed sprayer, compaction of the soil should be minimal.
In its current form, the Solix sprayer is optimized for use with cereal crops such as wheat, soybeans and corn. Solinftec says the technology has reduced herbicide use by up to 70 percent in U.S. trials conducted so far.
It is reported that the machine is scheduled to enter commercial use sometime next year.