Xinjiang deploys 108-arm robot for cotton topping, slashes labor costs

URUMQI -- It has 108 mechanical arms, rolls through cotton fields like a slow-moving tank, and performs more than 300,000 snips an hour. It is not some new weapon from a superhero movie, but a real robot built to do one of farming's most tedious jobs: cotton topping.

The unmanned machine, developed by Chinese engineers, is now operating in the vast cotton fields of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the country's largest cotton-producing area.

Standing 3.8 meters tall and weighing 8 metric tons, this robotic cotton topper is equipped with advanced sensors and machine vision. According to its manufacturer, Viewer Tech, a Xinjiang-based agricultural robotics company, the machine can cover up to 2 hectares per hour, an efficiency roughly 120 times that of manual labor.

Trials showed that the robotic approach can boost average yields by nearly 600 kg per hectare, with a net gain of more than 3,000 yuan (around $44) per hectare, said Liu Hangxing, general manager of Viewer Tech.

For generations, cotton topping has meant backbreaking work in scorching summer heat. Farmers have to walk row by row, snapping off the top of each plant by hand to control height and curb unproductive branches.

The job demands careful judgment: weaker plants need less removed, and stronger ones need more. Manual topping, once the only option, often produced uneven results because of variations in skill and pace, directly affecting yields.

The new robot, now in its fourth generation, uses binocular vision cameras and AI algorithms to scan each plant, locate the topping point within milliseconds, and guide its 108 mechanical arms to make the cut. From identification to action, the entire process can mimic the hand technique of experienced cotton farmers.