Rhee says Traptic stands out from other companies in the field because its robot doesn’t touch the strawberry. Instead, it grabs the strawberry stem, pulling hard enough to separate the fruit but light enough to avoid damaging the rest of the plant.
Such tasks are a constant challenge. A recent study looked at nearly 50 harvesting robot projects between 2000 and 2020 and found that harvesting robots are still not widely used, largely because most robots still can’t do it well. than humans.
Hugh Zhou is the lead author of a analysis on AI advancements in fruit harvesting robots and their commercial viability. Research done by researchers develop an apple harvesting robot at Monash University in Australia. Based on what might happen today, Zhou said he can envision a scenario where a robot picks 70% of easy-to-sort strawberries and a human picks the rest. It’s only in recent years that HarvestCROO Robotics and a few other companies have improved their systems to the point where they’re picking strawberries at a price that’s competitive with everyone else.
Zhou said fruit-harvesting robot makers are focusing on demo videos and focusing on data. The majority do not share publicly the damage rate or how well their visual system works when picking strawberries from clusters or strawberries partially hidden behind leaves, the two main reasons why the visual system The computer can’t pick the fruit. Smashed or bruised strawberries are still a common problem, and accidentally harming one strawberry while trying to pick another is an often overlooked and rarely addressed problem.
Companies working with robots to harvest fruit say there are many reasons why many people have not moved beyond the prototype stage, and only a handful of machines are operational today.
In April 2021, AppHarvest, the largest greenhouse operator in the US, acquired Root.ai, a Somerville, Massachusetts-based company with a Virgo machine picking grape tomatoes with a small, three-pronged robotic clamp. That technology is also now being used to pick strawberries and cucumbers, using four- and eight-finger pickers. As part of the deal, Root.ai CEO Josh Lessing became CTO at AppHarvest.
Pick rates have doubled since the acquisition, Lessing said. He said the company now wants to reduce the cost of the robot as it moves towards completion of the Virgo hardware by 2023.
Today, Virgo picks fruit more healthily than most, but ripeness detection and less fruit spoilage need to be improved before widespread use can be rolled out. According to Lessing, a former research director at Soft Robotics, the reduction in damage rates is related to the use of multiple soft grippers and forms of passive robot control.
Proponents of computer vision systems in agriculture say being able to predict when fruit is ripe will improve sales, reduce waste and increase productivity as the global population grows to 10 billion. .
Robots can also help grow and market expensive specialty fruits. Robots working in tandem with automated vision systems can monitor crops 24 hours a day to predict the ideal time to pick a ripe red strawberry. Startup Oishii raised $50 million last fall for its vertical farming operation as it worked to replicate the process of growing sweet Omakase strawberries commonly found in the Japanese Alps. Copy. A box of 11 fruits costs $50.
Advanced Farm operates 10 robotic pickers at Blazer Wilkinson strawberry farm in Central California. Each machine can pick about 100 pounds of strawberries an hour. Tarpaulins cover the top and sides of a machine that lays two rows of strawberries at once. The tarp blocks out light and helps the camera and computer vision system sort the fruit and control the robotic arms — the light can affect the computer vision system, so the machine is mostly working At night.
Every time a ripe strawberry is identified, a silicone robotic hand with a suction cup in the center moves in, grabs the strawberry, then uses three fingers to twist it off the stem and into the bin. . Advanced Farm designed nearly 50 versions before deciding on the current design of its picking system.
Kyle Cobb, co-founder of Advanced Farm, says the company’s robots are “on the ballpark” but are still more expensive than a human strawberry picker. “It’s one of those problems that we’ve mostly overcome, but like all robotic harvesting problems, the last few percent will be hard to build,” he said. he said.
