Ex-Tesla engineer builds Aigen robots to get weeds without pesticides

The Aigen item looks like a crafting table on sturdy frames. It constantly drives itself at about two miles per hour over farmland, using an advanced computer vision system to identify crops and unwanted plant invaders.

With two-axis robotic arms positioned close to the ground, the item can sweep weeds out of the way where they will dry up before they can plant and spread seeds.

The robots, which are used in a fleet-sized fleet to meet the needs of a particular growth process, run continuously for 12 to 14 hours at a time and never need to be plugged in. It is equipped with a lithium iron phosphate battery, as well as flexible solar panels that are lighter than the type commonly used on rooftops. They can even operate in the dark for about four hours, or six hours in light to moderate rain—all without the emissions associated with diesel-powered farm equipment.

The company behind the robots, Aigen, was founded by Rich Wurden,Tesla engineer, along with former Proofpoint Product Lead Kenny Lee in 2020.

According to the latest data available from US Environmental Protection Agency, Pesticide use in the US reached over £1.1 billion annually by 2012, with herbicides making up nearly 60% of that. Glyphosate was the most commonly used active ingredient that year, with 270 million to 290 million pounds being used at the time, and that was since 2001.

Reducing farmers’ over-reliance on pesticides and the heavy use of chemicals in the global food supply is of personal importance to Wurden and Lee. Both the founders and many of the employees on their team of 15 have overcome significant health issues associated with pesticide exposure.

Wurden, who is chief technology officer at Aigen, comes from a family of farmers who grew sugar beets in Minnesota. Now, he says, his family’s farm grows corn and soybeans. prod

“My pancreas stopped producing insulin when I was 15 all of a sudden,” he said. He had always suspected that exposure to pesticides, which is associated with an increased risk of diabetes, was a factor.

As a type 1 diabetic, he has lived with an insulin pump and the health of the environment on his mind every day since his diagnosis.

Before becoming an entrepreneur, Wurden worked as a mechanical engineer and on battery technology at Tesla, helping create the battery pack found in the company’s bestselling Model 3 and Y sedans and Model S sedans. He later joined a startup electric boat company called Pure Watercraft in Seattle. , where he says he caught something of the startup’s mistake.

Lee, CEO of Aigen, beat non-Hodgkins lymphoma as a young man, and says he’s interested in personal health and the health of the planet after his career in cybersecurity, where he’s been more focused on making the internet a safer place for everyone. (Lee was a co-founder of Weblife.io, which Proofpoint acquired in a deal worth about $60 million in 2017.)

Wurden and Lee met up on a Slack channel called Work on Climate where tech industry veterans discussed how to pivot or grow their careers while fighting the climate crisis.

Farmers want the ability to identify exactly when and where insects appear so they can eliminate those that pose a danger, for example. They also want irrigation-related analytics, which would tell them if their plants are getting enough water, and whether some parts of the field might need more watering than others.

Typically, a fleet of Element bots would pass over the field continuously, collecting data each time. For now, the system can provide what growers call a “wing count,” an analysis of the number of healthy plants in a field.

Aigen Element runs on solar and wind energy, completely off the power grid. It also runs its AI analytics and machine learning software on the device, rather than in the cloud. Because of that, Lee said, the company has the potential to provide farmers with more comprehensive crop analytics.

“As we take action to remove weeds, we can do other things that no other agricultural technology can do because we move on the ground.”

The element could also help farmers overcome persistent labor shortages in farming, keeping their crops healthy even during sweltering temperatures that make it hostile for people to stay in fields out of weeding range.

According to Trent Eidem, who signed up to put Aigen Element to work in his sugar beet growing operation near Fargo, robots are also attractive because they can reduce the amount of money farmers have to spend on costly “inputs,” namely herbicides. . Aidam said that inputs and energy are the two largest items in his budget.

Next year, the company plans to build and bring more robots to farmers — and to develop additional capabilities for them, too.

Aigen has raised about $7 million in early-stage funding and additional grant money from the State of Idaho to develop its system.

Investors include a mix of climate and technology-focused seed and venture funds: NEA, Global Founders, Regen Ventures, Bessemer, Climate Tech VC, Cleveland Ave. and a climate fund he previously foundedmeta Executive Director Mike Schroepfer.