Niall Mottram

This targeted dispense technology has the potential to dramatically reduce the amount of pesticides and herbicides that we apply to crops today; potentially by up to 99 percent. It does this by selectively targeting only weeds and infestations in a whole field, so that healthy crop and soil doesn't have pesticide applied to it. Through that we can massively reduce both cost and environmental impact.

Being able to hit a moving target is challenging. And hitting a moving target that varies in appearance is even more so. So being able to differentiate from color and shape, and then being able to calculate how quickly you're moving and therefore at what point you should dispense so that you hit your target; that requires some pretty sophisticated algorithms.

This technology enables the next generation of 'agri-chemicals' to be used. So a lot of existing chemicals are perhaps coming to the point where they're going to be banned. The next generation, they're typically called 'biologicals', they're very much more expensive than the chemicals used today. This technology, however, might be an enabler for them. So you have something that's a little bit more targeted and a little bit more environmentally friendly that can do the same jobs as a lot of the more harmful chemicals do today.