The text "to take place in early 2020" and "AVAILABLE 2021" on that site, in November 2022, does not inspire confidence.
I guess in the near term dozens of specialized robots for each task will be necessary, but the idea I like is teams of general purpose robots using simple tools to perform almost any task "manually". It's too early to implement that now, but I think it will be feasible within my lifetime.
Generality is probably one reason why this robot sprays instead of hoeing. In addition to killing weeds, by changing chemicals this thing can fertilize, and they also mention pollinating and preventing pollination of flowers. (Preventing pollination avoids overburdening some kinds of trees. Currently instead people have to do "thinning" which is simply pulling half of the crop off the tree before it's ripe and throwing it on the ground).
I guess in the near term dozens of specialized robots for each task will be necessary, but the idea I like is teams of general purpose robots using simple tools to perform almost any task "manually". It's too early to implement that now, but I think it will be feasible within my lifetime.
Generality is probably one reason why this robot sprays instead of hoeing. In addition to killing weeds, by changing chemicals this thing can fertilize, and they also mention pollinating and preventing pollination of flowers. (Preventing pollination avoids overburdening some kinds of trees. Currently instead people have to do "thinning" which is simply pulling half of the crop off the tree before it's ripe and throwing it on the ground).