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Zero weed robot

 Thermonuclear fusion energy powered autonomous untethered unguided annihilator mounted vehicle for control of alien vegetation in decorative grass monoculture area
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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]

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       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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