Product: Robot: Domestic
Zero weed robot   (+6, -2)  [vote for, against]
Thermonuclear fusion energy powered autonomous untethered unguided annihilator mounted vehicle for control of alien vegetation in decorative grass monoculture area

My alarm clock broke, so I was early at work today. As I dawdled past the recently reseeded front lawn I noticed people pulling tufts up. Apparently some unwanted plants had gotten in and they were in doing a morning stint getting rid of them before the sun got too hot.

This is just the job for a robot. The ZWR will patrol the area, looking at each blade of grass and leaf through a multispectral sensor. If the readings do not match a set of templates (for young, mature & senile leaves) it deploys a parbolic mirror or a convex lens, focusing the sun's rays to kill that weed. It will be powered by solar panels. No batteries. It cannot work when the sun is behind a cloud anyway.

For StarChaser, a bolt-on attachment has two arms, one having a comb and the other, clippers. Periodically the length of the grass is tested and the excess cut back to leave an interesting pattern, programmed by buried bar magnets.
-- neelandan, Feb 16 2002

Uses lasers, but nearly the same thing. https://interesting...0000-weeds-per-hour
A machine to kill weeds using CO2 lasers after identifying them with cameras. [neelandan, Apr 29 2021]

Alas, you must kill the root.
-- phoenix, Feb 16 2002


Oh yes, back-from-the-ashes bird. Heating an area of soil does kill the roots within.
-- neelandan, Feb 16 2002


isn't the broad leaf weedkiller cheaper, I was hoping this was something that cut the grass. croissant anyway for thought, spelling and well just because....
-- po, Feb 16 2002


No reason it oculdn't cut grass too. Large fresnel lenses are cheap and can melt asphalt on a good sunny day...
-- StarChaser, Feb 16 2002


If you have a robot you don't need to kill the root - just trim the leaf. I don't care if I have weed roots if I can't see or smell them. Eventually the roots will die from lack of sunlight anyway.
-- tolly3, Feb 17 2002


not a gardener, obviously, tolly3.
-- po, Feb 17 2002


SC: Cutting grass would need to be done using shears. A bolt-on attachment added, at your request.
-- neelandan, Feb 18 2002


[-] Weeds are just plants, but in what you have determined to be the wrong place. Often they're important for biodiversity, insects, pollination, etc.
-- hippo, Apr 29 2021


OK so the Buttercups & Daisies look pretty in an otherwise pristine lawn, they can stay, the rest are toast.
-- Skewed, Apr 29 2021


Ah, energetics rule. It is a less energetically intensive for the brain to look at a flat useless mono-cultured area than than a highly bio diverse, complex pattern. There may be dangers there.

Then again I suppose we all want to make a mark of some sort in existence of our own presence. Gardening is just one where nature tries to fight back.
-- wjt, May 01 2021



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