There will soon be a solution to kill those pesky little weeds that, no matter how hard you try, continue to rear their ugly heads in your gardens.

Franklin Robotics, a Lowell, Mass.-based startup, is developing the Tertill weeding robot for home gardens. Tertill, which is a prototype at this point, will be a solar-powered, autonomous robot that uses a small weed whacker to rid your garden of weeds, avoiding plants and obstacles along the way.

Ideally, Tertill will be able to perform other tasks as well, including monitoring plant and soil health and keeping unwanted animals (squirrels, rabbits, etc.) that eat plants out of your garden.

Franklin Robotics is hoping to get some test models of Tertill into various gardens this spring to get feedback on how it performs in different environments. If all goes well, Franklin Robotics could launch a crowdfunding campaign this summer and ship Tertill in the spring of 2017.

Joe Jones, the first employee of iRobot and inventor of the Roomba, is part of the Franklin Robotics team, so the company has some tremendous experience when it comes to household robotics. Rory MacKean, CEO of Franklin Robotics, joined the Robotics Trends Show to discuss the Tertill weeding robot and how it can help maintain healthy gardens.

Listen to the podcast using the embedded player below and share your thoughts on the Tertill weeding robot.

Tertill prototype (Credit: America’s Greatest Makers)