Can Autonomous Sprayers Go Electric?

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

This week we’ve featured the GUSS autonomous sprayer that is built for orchard and vineyard crops. The machine has to be large and powerful enough to cover an entire full grown tree, but the company is also developing technology specially for ground spraying. GUSS COO Gary Thompson says in that case, it makes sense to go electric.

Thompson… “We're building an herbicide sprayer right now, building the prototype. And that one doesn't have the fan on it because we're just spraying weeds on the ground. So really essentially all we're doing is driving the vehicle using, you know, 20-30 horsepower and running a small herbicide pump. So with that machine we've calc'd it out and we figure we can get around a 10 to 12 hour runtime on the batteries. And that's a viable product, you know, that's something that our customers are asking us for. You know, first off the herbicide side of things and secondly, the electrification side of things. So, that's where we're gonna take our first plunge into the electric side. Really get to understand and know the systems and then hopefully in the future, you know, as battery technology improves and the recharging technologies and the infrastructure is on farms for the recharging. Then we'll take another look at doing the air blast sprayer with it.”

This is one of the many opportunities to bring automation into farming operations. Learn more at GUSSag.com.