Blue River Technology is using artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision to build smart farm machines that can identify and target individual plants, allowing farmers to reduce the amount of herbicides they use and increase their crop yields.
The company was founded in 2011 by Jorge Heraud and Lee Redden, who both have backgrounds in robotics and computer vision. They saw an opportunity to apply their expertise to the agricultural industry, which has traditionally been slow to adopt new technologies.
Their first product was the LettuceBot, a machine that uses computer vision to identify and spray individual lettuce plants with herbicides. This allows farmers to reduce the amount of herbicides they use by up to 90%, while also increasing their crop yields by up to 10%.
Since then, Blue River Technology has expanded their product line to include machines for other crops, such as cotton and soybeans. They have also developed a platform called See & Spray, which uses AI to identify and target weeds in real-time, allowing farmers to reduce their herbicide use even further. The See & Spray platform works by using cameras mounted on a tractor to capture images of the field as it moves through it. These images are then analyzed by an AI algorithm, which identifies the weeds and determines the best way to target them. The machine then sprays a small amount of herbicide directly onto the weed while avoiding the crop.
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