- In the Netherlands, high-tech robots designed to fight disease in tulip fields use artificial intelligence to identify and deal with diseased flowers.
- A robot equipped with a camera and an AI algorithm inspects the tulips, taking thousands of images to determine if the tulips are infected.
- This technology allows robots to make informed decisions about which flowers need to be destroyed to prevent the spread of the virus.
Theo works weekdays, weekends and nights, checking Dutch tulip fields for diseased flowers for hours on end, but his backbone is strained. I have never complained about it hurting.
Named after a retired employee of the WAM Pennings farm near the Dutch North Sea coast, the boxy robot is a new high-tech weapon in the fight to eradicate disease from bulb fields, where a riot of spring color erupts.
On a windy spring morning, the robot walked along the rows of yellow and red “Goodestick” tulips Tuesday, checking each plant and, if necessary, removing diseased bulbs to prevent the spread of the virus that cracks the tulips. Withered. After harvesting, healthy and dead bulbs are removed in a sorting warehouse.
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Viruses inhibit plant growth and development, causing flowers to be small and weak. The bulbs themselves will also weaken and eventually stop blooming.
Artificially intelligent robots are a new high-tech weapon in the fight to eradicate disease from Dutch tulip fields that are bursting with spring color. (AP Photo/Peter DeJong)
As part of anti-virus efforts, 45 robots are patrolling tulip fields across the Netherlands and around the world as the weather warms and farmers head into peak season when bulbs bloom into a giant patchwork of colors. Tourists are flocking from here.
Until now, this work has been done by human “disease spotters,” said Alan Visser, a third-generation tulip farmer who is using the robot during the second growing season.
Visser said Tuesday that the robot’s price “could buy you a really nice sports car.” According to the manufacturer, the robot costs 185,000 euros ($200,000).
“But I’d prefer a robot, because you can’t remove sick tulips from a field with a sports car. Yes, it’s expensive, but someone can actually see the sick tulips.” There are fewer and fewer,” he added.
Much slower than a sports car, it tracks through fields at 0.6 miles per hour, picking out red stripes on the leaves of infected flowers.
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“There’s a camera on the front that takes thousands of pictures of the tulips. Then an AI model determines whether the tulips are sick or not,” Visser explained, calling this “precision farming.” .
“The robot has learned to recognize this and treat it,” he added.
Eric de Jong of H2L Robotics, which manufactures the robot, said artificial intelligence can help identify diseased flowers, and highly accurate GPS coordinates can pinpoint which flowers need to be disposed of.
“At the heart of the machine is the knowledge that we built into the AI model. That knowledge came from the tulip farmers. So we took the knowledge of the tulip farmers and combined it into the AI model. ” he said.
Theo van der Voort, who named the robot at WAM Pennings Farm and retired after 52 years of hunting diseased flowers, is impressed.
“It’s wonderful,” he said. “It sees it as much as I see it.”
