The LaserWeeder G2 is available now; Carbon ATK is coming in 2026
Carbon Robotics is bringing two new products to farmers.
Available now is the LaserWeeder G2, the second generation of the company’s initial LaserWeeder.
The first-generation product only came in a 20-foot configuration.
The G2 is available in sizes ranging from six to 40 feet wide. It’s also about 30 percent lighter and can work about 40 percent faster than its predecessor.
These machines can be used on a variety of crops from onions and carrots to corn and soybeans.
The LaserWeeder uses AI and lasers to identify, target, and zap weeds every 50 milliseconds.
For context, it takes between 100 and 150 milliseconds to blink.
Across the width of the implement is individual setups known as weeding modules equipped with three cameras.
“Each module has a forward-looking predict camera that looks at the field and sees what’s coming, where the weeds and where the crops are,” Paul Mikesell, founder and CEO of Carbon Robotics, told Farms.com. “That’s where you get target identification things like stand count and crop health information we supply in our Carbon Ops Center.”
The weeding module also contains two lasers.
“Each laser has a targeting system, and that system has a target camera,” Mikesell said. “The target camera’s job is to look at what the laser is focusing in on and make sure it’s on target.”
And while engineering the G2, the team at Carbon Robotics developed a new laser for better results.
“It’s higher powered and has a tighter beam diameter, so we’re concentrating the energy in a more specific target location,” Paul Mikesell, founder and CEO of Carbon Robotics, told Farms.com.
The G1 LaserWeeder used 150W lasers while the G2 uses 240W lasers.
Mikesell is hearing from farmers about the positive outcomes of using the LaserWeeder.
The number of weed seeds in fields are going down, he said.
“Farmers are telling us their weed seed banks are going down as they use laser weeding,” he said. “Which makes sense because we’re killing the weed before it can go to seed.”
The other product in development from Carbon Robotics is Carbon ATK.
It’s an autonomous tractor kit for existing tractors.
“We have some electronic (printed circuit boards) that plug into parts of the tractor control system then allow us to take it over and allow the tractor to perform the proper operations,” Mikesell said.
One element of Carbon ATK is remote supervision.
“We have a group of people that work for Carbon Robotics, and they monitor all of the ATK systems,” Mikesell said. “Our group can remotely control the tractors when we need to. The goal is that the farmer doesn’t have to worry about it.”
But this doesn’t totally remove the farmer from the equation.
Farmers can communicate with the Carbon Robotics support team through mobile chats or phone calls.
“There’s direct connection and we want farmers to know they can always take control and ask questions,” Mikesell said.
Carbon ATK is running in a limited capacity in 2025 with plans to scale up production slowly beginning in 2026, he added.