Niqo Robotics Unveils 50-Foot AI Weeder That Covers 25 Acres an Hour

01 November 2026, Yakima, US: Niqo Robotics unveiled the largest machine in its weeding robot lineup on October 20, 2026, during the FIRA USA robotics show in Yakima, Washington, extending its artificial intelligence based weed control system to a working width of up to 50 feet.

The new model, called the RoboWeeder F50, is a tractor towed implement built for large specialty crop farms and turf operations. It joins Niqo’s existing 20 foot flagship machine and a 24 foot model aimed at Pacific Northwest growers, giving the company a range of sizes to match different farm scales.

Niqo Robotics was founded as TartanSense in India before rebranding and expanding into the United States and Australia. Founder Jaisimha Rao said the company built the F50 after growers with larger acreages asked for a machine that could cover more ground per pass without giving up the accuracy of its smaller units.

How the machine works

The RoboWeeder F50 carries 14 cameras, which the company calls its Niqo Sense system, spread across five spray bays that together house 350 individual nozzles. As the implement moves through a field, the cameras identify crop plants and weeds in real time, and an onboard computer directs only the nozzles positioned over weeds to fire, rather than blanket spraying the whole bed. Niqo says the system identifies and sprays targets with better than 99 percent accuracy.

Because the machine sprays small, targeted doses rather than drenching entire rows, it can be loaded with herbicide, a fertiliser, or a biological pest control product, and used for weeding, thinning excess seedlings, or spot treating crops with beneficial organisms, all in a single pass across the field. The company says this flexibility is aimed at specialty row crops such as lettuce, broccoli, onions, kale, tomatoes and melons, as well as turf grass operations.

At a working width that expands from a 46 foot base frame to 50 feet, the F50 can cover up to 25 acres an hour while travelling at roughly 4.5 to 4.7 miles an hour, Niqo said. The implement weighs about 4,900 pounds and needs a tractor rated at 135 horsepower or more to pull it, which the company says lets growers retrofit the weeder onto equipment they already own rather than buying a dedicated self-driving vehicle. The frame folds into a compact shape for transport between fields. The system is ISOBUS compatible, a standard that lets farm equipment share data with tractor display screens, so operators can see coverage maps and application rates and use hands free turning at the end of rows.

Niqo said the RoboWeeder F50 is manufactured in the United States and is commercially available now in the United States and Australia, with no subscription fee required to operate it. Growers can place orders for delivery in the 2027 growing season.

A crowded but fast growing field

Mechanical and AI guided weeding has become one of the most active corners of farm robotics, as growers look for ways to cut herbicide use and labour costs at the same time. Niqo’s expansion into a 50 foot implement mirrors a broader push across the sector toward wider, faster machines that can compete with the acreage a conventional sprayer covers in a day, while still working at the plant by plant precision that chemical only weed control cannot match.

For agricultural input suppliers, machines like the F50 represent both a challenge and an opportunity. Precision application can reduce the total volume of herbicide a farm buys each season, but it also opens space for formulation changes, since products designed for targeted micro dosing do not always need the same carriers or concentrations as those built for broadcast spraying. Input companies that can supply products compatible with spot application systems, including biological crop protection products that are often costlier per acre to apply broadly, may find a readier market as machines like the F50 spread across specialty crop regions.

Niqo’s move into the United States and Australian markets also reflects a wider pattern among agricultural robotics firms that started in lower cost manufacturing environments such as India, then adapted their technology for the labour intensive, higher value specialty crop farms common in parts of North America and Australia. With orders already open for 2027, the company’s next test will be whether a machine of this size can hold the accuracy that smaller, slower units have demonstrated in commercial fields.

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