Robocrop Guided Hoes

DESCRIPTION

Robocrop Guided Hoes is an Agricultural-Robots from Garford Farm Machinery. It is built for Agriculture. Key figures: released 2001.

Robocrop Guided Hoes are Garford's camera-guided inter-row hoes, tractor-mounted cultivators whose hoeing units are steered along the crop rows by the Robocrop vision system instead of by the driver. A camera views several crop rows over a large area and uses a grid-matching technique, so it can follow rows accurately even in narrow-row cereals and multi-line carrot-type beds. Images are analysed 30 times a second and the hoe is moved by a hydraulic side shift with anti-backlash action; accuracy is generally 15 mm at the camera, or better than 10 mm with soil-engaging discs. Forward speeds of up to 12 km/h are common, and Garford quotes 8 to 15 km/h depending on crop and row spacing. Pressure rams keep the soil-engaging parts in work at speed, and Garford Slash blades stop weeds slipping by next to the row while clearing foliage. Machines are custom built, from 1-row units to 18 m hydraulic folding frames and 24 m trailed machines, front or rear mounted, with raised-bed versions, a tine raiser for headlands, a Baby Leaf Salad Hoe for row spacings down to 6 cm, and an optional front tank and metering system for placing fertiliser precisely at the plants.

FEATURES