FIRA USA 2024, the California agricultural robotics and technology forum, took place in Sacramento, Calif., this year and featured lots of cutting edge agricultural technology and tools. Industry leaders from all over the world shared their vision for the future of autonomous farming, and over 80 exhibitors and 2500 attendees packed the Yolo County Fairgrounds for the 3-day event. Here are 3 standout weed suppression tools that farmers and dealers might want to keep their eye on in the coming months.

Aigen Element

One of the newer companies that was not in attendance for FIRA USA 2022 or 2023, Aigen made its FIRA USA debut this year and turned lots of heads in the process. This solar powered autonomous weeding technology has potential to change how growers approach weed suppression.

“We are a truly solar company with a solar panel on top charging the robotics system, which runs in a fleet format so that growers can deploy these robots on the field from crop emergence all the way to full canopy,” says Chris Brenner, Head of Field Operations for Aigen. “The system drives through the fields with camera systems pointing down, identifies the weeds and the crops and it removes them with mechanical hoes on the back.”

The main robot that Aigen had on display at the event, Aigen Element, is categorized as a terrestrial satellite rover, according to Aigen Chief of Staff, Sandra Phillips.

“It has all the connectivity and data collection capability of a satellite out in space that’s part of that true solar, fully off grid, totally autonomous — but it’s here on earth, roaming around,” Phillips says. “And what we wanted to focus on was delivering value to customers. So, what we heard loud and clear from all the growers we spoke to was that data is great and insights are better but none of that matters if you can’t immediately turn that into action. So the robot is equipped to identify crops, differentiate them from weeds and then make a striking decision and eliminate the weeds in real time. It’s all edge compute, it’s happening on board so you have the data but you have action and that’s kind of our internal tagline is data to action.”

While Aigen Element wasn’t officially being demo’d out in the demo fields like many other robots at FIRA, our editors got an exclusive sneak peak at the robot moving around in the field.

Solix by Solinftec

Solinftec’s fully autonomous, solar-powered spot-spraying robot, Solix, was another machine on display at FIRA USA 2024. This machine is quite a bit larger than the Aigen Element robot and has some unique features of its own. Customer success specialist, Nick Derheimer, was standing by to answer questions and show off the Solix robot to attendees.

“This machine goes 1 mile per hour so we aren’t breaking any land speed records, but that 1mph allows us to get a very precise application,” Derheimer says. “We’re opening a couple inches before and a couple inches after the weed, which allows us to waste as little chemical as possible.”

Dereimer says so far, the company is seeing an average of 85% chemical reduction on post-herbicide application. Solix is averaging 50 acres per day at this rate, with the potential for that number to increase as the technology develops further.

“From a pricepoint perspective, we try to keep this at a rate where it would be affordable for a farmer to have a fleet of these machines,” Derheimer says. “This unit only costs $50,000. There is no service fee that gets added to that. We want a 5,000 acre grower to be able to have 10 of these and still have it be profitable. One robot per 500 acres and that farmer can manage it all while sipping on his coffee at his house.”

Solinftec’s Solix robot won the gold medal for “Best FIRA USA Robot,” voted on by the attendees at the 2024 event.

Verdant Robotics — Sharpshooter

Touted as the only robotic precision application system that aims before it shoots, Verdant Robotics’ Sharpshooter uses what’s called Bullseye Aim & Apply Technology. It’s capable of spraying targets ranging from the size of a dime to a dinner plate at a rate of 120-480 shots per second. Verdant Robotics’ co-founder, Curtis Garner, says the machine can also be used for more than just weed control. 

“The main thing you should know about Verdant — we’re not just a weeding machine,” Garner says. “We do that, and we do it well and that’s the first thing the grower can get an ROI on. But, we can do a lot more for these growers as well. Weeding, thinning, applying crop protectants — whatever they need, we’re here to provide that multi-faceted value.” 

The Sharpshooter was one of the most popular live demos on display at FIRA, with hundreds of attendees gathered around and following the machine on foot to see the results of its aim and shoot technology