Robots

The world is facing food insecurity problem due to shortage of workforce and growing world population. Robotization of crop production will help to boost food production, through effective labour conservation. This study was carried out to optimize the performance of tomato fruits' robotic harvesters,…

Fruit detection forms a vital part of the robotic harvesting platform. However, uneven environment conditions, such as branch and leaf occlusion, illumination variation, clusters of tomatoes, shading, and so on, have made fruit detection very challenging. In order to solve these problems, a modified…

COVID-19 has accelerated interest in the role that automation, robotics and data can play in food and agricultural production. We speak to industry leaders to learn about the latest developments.

The National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) and other bodies have jointly developed the prototype of a robot that automatically harvests apples, pears, and other fruits. This robot is capable of identifying fruits using technology based on deep learning. In the case of Japanese pears,…

For years, growers have been struggling with labour shortage. Even before COVID prevented seasonal labourers to work abroad, growers did not always have enough employees to get the job done. Employing a multi-functional robot instead would solve many of these problems. After all, robots can not only…

A conglomeration of parties, including Japan's National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO), has developed a prototype of a robot that automatically harvests fruit including apples and pears. The group is aiming to commercialize the product in two years. Shinnosuke Kusaba, head of NARO's…

Despite the pandemic or perhaps because of it, domestic sales have been very strong this year for Australian automation company GP Graders. "We had a number of sales for blueberry machinery, small tomato machinery and of course cherry machinery," explains Stuart Payne, Director of the company. "A big…

The Financial Times reports that, as Christmas approaches at the Melrow nursery in Merseyside, north-west England, one worker wants no holiday, has no concerns about catching Covid-19 and is happy to work up to 23 hours a day plucking piccolo tomatoes. The Eagle robot, acquired by the nursery’s owner…

SAIA Agrobotics, a tech spin-off from Wageningen University & Research, will further develop its technology for greenhouse robotics with investments from the Technology Transfer funds of Innovation Industries, SHIFT Invest and the ION+ fund managed by Oost NL. SAIA Agrobotics develops robots that can…

500Foods shared this story from FP.com.

Dr Sanjit K. Roy, UWA Business School and Dr Gaganpreet Singh, Jindal Global University, look at a retail revolution that is under way, where robots are playing an increasingly important role. This year has been extraordinary for many reasons but one of the most fascinating effects of COVID has been a…

The first half of September saw plenty of interesting developments in the industry. North American growers were particularly busy with new greenhouses and expansions. Automation was also a hot topic, with several robotics providers announcing investments. Lufa Farms World's biggest rooftop greenhouse opens in MontrealBuilding…

This Canadian #robotics supplier is building customizable off-the-shelf solutions for #greenhouse producers growing diverse #ornamental crops. #automation

greenhousecanada.com/building-flexi…

The fourth edition of Future Trends & Innovations was recently held. Unlike earlier editions, it was completely online this time, and with more applications than ever before, noticed organisers AVAG, TNO, Stichting Hortivation and GreenTech contently. There was also plenty of discussion from behind the…

Robot fruit picker ‘Clive’ will be working on two Goulburn Valley properties to see if it is a commercially viable alternative to human labour. The machine was built by Australian company Ripe Robotics. It will be put to the test in the orchards of Turnbull Brothers and HV McNab and Son, near Shepparton,…

Tech Talk - Robotic Vertical Farming. Sun, November 29, 2020, 6:40 AM PST. The future of farming is here in Utah, all thanks to something called ...

Senior Robotics Technician Jake Shaw-Sutton, and his startup company Robotriks, have developed the Robotriks Traction Unit.The Robotriks RTU platform can be fitted with a range of traditional and high-tech attachments for use on farms.  A low-cost robotic platform which can be fitted with almost any agricultural…

Co-op is expanding its use of autonomous home delivery by rolling out the service to shoppers in Northampton. The retailer says it has ambitions to use as many as 300 robots by the end of 2021 as it looks for more towns and cities in which to operate autonomous deliveries. The autonomous service will serve around 5,000 Northampton households with contactless deliveries. Initially deliveries will be made from the Co-op food store in Wootton Fields serving communities in Wootton and Hardingstone, with the robots typically travelling up to three miles from the store.
Source: retailanalysis.igd.com 

With automation poised to transform agriculture in Australia in the coming years, Monash University researchers have published the first-ever analysis of the ethical and policy issues raised by the use of robots in agriculture. Agriculture employs around 2.5 per cent of the country’s workforce and is a…

500Foods shared this story from FP.com.

Badger Technologies, a product division of Jabil, is teaming up with STCR, Inc., a provider of advanced retail point-of-sale and self-checkout solutions, to increase the momentum of multipurpose robot rollouts by independent and regional grocers around the world. This collaboration will speed deployments…

"This is a peculiar year - the pandemic has made everything new and uncertain. One of few sectors unaffected by the crisis is the agricultural and food sector, especially when it comes to large retail chains and producers. Most of our clients belong to this category and, luckily, they are going through…

Around the world, growers have always found innovative ways to work smarter. Although processes and inputs can be stretch to the limit to maximize profits, human labor cannot, and it is becoming a devastating problem. The increasing worker shortage continues to make it difficult for farmers to get the…

Protected cultivation systems such as greenhouses are becoming increasingly popular globally and have been adopted because of unpredictable climatic conditions and their ability to easily control micro- and macroenvironments. However, limitations such as hazardous work environments and shortages in labor are major concerns for agricultural production using these structures. This has led to the development and adoption of robotic systems. For the efficient use of robots in protected cultivation systems, we formulate the work efficiency problem and model a three-dimensional standard strawberry greenhouse to analyze the effectiveness of a strawberry-harvesting robot compared to different levels of human workforce (experienced, average, and beginner). Simulations are conducted using Quest software to compare the efficiency of different scenarios of robotics to humans. Different methods of improvement from battery capacity and charge rate to harvesting speed are investigated and optimal conditions are recommended. The average hourly production of the robot is about five times lower than that of skilled workers. However, robots are more productive due to their ability to work around the clock. Comparative analyses show that a reduction in harvesting time per strawberry from 3 to 1 s would result in an increase in daily production from 347.93 to 1021.30 kg. This would lead to a five-fold increase in comparison to present daily production.

Farmers aim to decrease the use of herbicides. But, there is insufficient labor available in both conventional and organic farming to remove weeds and harvest by hand. Wageningen researchers develop self-learning robots that pull weeds and harvest with increasing skill. Since humans and robots will likely increasingly work…

500Foods shared this story from FP.com. Around the world, growers have always found innovative ways to work smarter. Although processes and inputs can be stretch to the limit to maximize profits, human labor cannot, and it is becoming a devastating problem. The increasing worker shortage continues to make it difficult for farmers to get the…

Israeli Industry experts estimate that about 10 percent of the world’s fruit crops rots on the trees and goes to waste because there are not enough workers to pick it. That is why one apple grower in northern Israel is testing out a robotic fruit-picking system from Tevel Aerobotics Technologies, a local…

Unplugged Tour

After a years-long push to automate its stores with helpful worker robots, Walmart Inc. is pulling the plug.

While Walmart plans to experiment with some kinds of robots and automated tech, according to The Wall Street Journal, the retail giant will no longer use robots to scan shelves and track inventory. It turns out that people still do the job better — and were less likely to creep out both workers and customers.

The first prototype of a robot for mechanical weeding was created in 2014 by Paolo Ferrentino (in the photo). "It is a vehicle that performs mechanical weeding proceeding autonomously without the need for operators. It is still a prototype for now, so we are not presenting the definitive machine, but…

A University of British Columbia student design team is developing a fully autonomous agricultural robot, driven by their belief that Canada can lead the world in sustainable farming. The UBC AgroBot aims to precisely exterminate weeds and fertilize crops as well as record data from a farmer’s operation.…

Getting cutting edge, labour-saving technology for the packhouse and seeing them pay back in just 2-3 years for equipment which has a 15-year life span, sounds like a no-brainer! But it is not that easy to convince people that the investment is going to be worth it. James White, Marketing & Sales…

Robotization has been a key development in the greenhouse industry in recent years. With the recent investment by Japanese car part giant DENSO, Dutch agtech company Certhon is well-positioned to play a big part in this development. At the GreenTech, Edwin Vanlaerhoven, head of business development at…