Robots

Estimations of world population growth urgently require improving the efficiency of agricultural processes, as well as improving safety for people and environmental sustainability, which can be opposing characteristics. Industry is pursuing these objectives by developing the concept of the “intelligent factory” (also referred to as the “smart factory”) and, by studying the similarities between industry and agriculture, we can exploit the achievements attained in industry for agriculture. This article focuses on studying those similarities regarding robotics to advance agriculture toward the concept of “intelligent farms” (smart farms). Thus, this article presents some characteristics that agricultural robots should gain from industrial robots to attain the intelligent farm concept regarding robot morphologies and features as well as communication, computing, and data management techniques. The study, restricted to robotics for outdoor farms due to the fact that robotics for greenhouse farms deserves a specific study, reviews different structures for robot manipulators and mobile robots along with the latest techniques used in intelligent factories to advance the characteristics of robotics for future intelligent farms.

Sam's Club is adding 372 autonomous floor scrubbers, manufactured by Tennant Co. and powered by Brain Corp, to its fleet. The expansion will result in a floor scrubber in nearly all of the retailer's 600 U.S. stores. 

Sam's Club is also expanding a six-month retail shelf analytics pilot using Brain Corp's innovative floor scrubber accessory for localizing and analyzing shelf inventory with the goal of improving in-store shopping experiences. This cloud-connected application helps verify pricing accuracy, confirm planogram compliance and ensure product availability without requiring time consuming and potentially inaccurate manual processes.

The data-scanning capabilities using artificial intelligence (AI) will work in addition to the cleaning attributes of the Tennant T7AMR floor scrubbers. 

Alphabet’s X lab, the former Google division that launched the Waymo self-driving car unit and other ambitious projects, has officially announced its latest “moonshot”: a computational agriculture project the company is calling Mineral.

The project is focused on sustainable food production and farming at large scales, with a focus on “developing and testing a range of software and hardware prototypes based on breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, simulation, sensors, robotics and more,” according to project lead Elliott Grant.

A blog post outlining the project’s vision says Mineral, which now has an official name but may have launched in secret around 2017 according to Grant’s LinkedIn page, will try and aim technology toward...

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Neupeak Robotics have secured $100,000 through the National Research Council and Innovate BC’s Fast Pilot Program. The BC Fast Pilot program allows BC technology companies to demonstrate the impact of their product, measure the value of their solution, and encourage customer adoption through the…

Miso Robotics is one of the many firms trying to automate food preparation, and today, it announced that its latest machine — which places its burger-flipping bot Flippy on rails to move it about the kitchen more easily — is now on sale globally.

Prices for the contraption (known as the Flippy Robot-on-a-Rail or Flippy ROAR) start at $30,000, though Miso Robotics wants to bring the cost down to $20,000 in the future. The company is also offering the option to hire Flippy ROAR for $1,500 a month, a fee which includes maintenance and upgrades and which Miso says is cheaper overall than hiring humans.

Like Flippy before it, Flippy ROAR is designed to automate simple food prep, specifically anything involving fryers and grills. The robot...

It’s a misty morning near Salinas, California and the advanced.farm TX harvester—a lightweight, driverless tractor covered in canvas—is picking strawberries. Like a dot-matrix printer moving along a page, the harvester’s robotic hands move back and forth along the beds, scanning for signs of red. When it…

X5 Retail Group, a leading Russian food retailer that operates the Pyaterochka, Perekrestok and Karusel retail chains, has begun to implement a robotic telephone platform. The system, which uses speech technology to carry out various business functions, is a proprietary development of the X5 Big Data department. The project also uses Yandex SpeechKit technology, part of the Yandex.Cloud online services platform.

Mexican farm workers harvest celery in a field of Brawley, California, in the Imperial Valley, on January 31, 2017. Many of the farm workers expressed fears that they would not be able to continue working in the United States under the President Trump's administration.

This year is marked by the Covid-19 pandemic and the global confinement it has led to. This unprecedented situation impacts the agricultural production and further compounds the difficulties of a sector undergoing labor shortages.In that light, how can robotics provide an appropriate and…

This video features a fruit harvesting robot. It's more efficient and precise than a person. The robot uses artificial intelligence and the latest technology and is fitted with lights. So, it can navigate through large greenhouses and orchards, 24 hours/day. It can then detect which fruits are ripe…

Japan has the oldest population in the world, and that's causing an acute labor shortage. With almost a third of the population aged 65 and above, finding workers can be a challenge.

Funding will help commercialize technology that addresses major challenges faced by farmers

September 9, 2020 - Halifax, Nova Scotia – Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA)

Agriculture is one of Atlantic Canada’s biggest exports and sources of economic activity; however, today’s farmers face significant challenges getting their products to market. Labour shortages, pesticides and global warming have all changed the way agricultural products are grown, harvested and distributed to consumers. To help facilitate the search for better solutions, the Government of Canada is supporting businesses that are finding creative ways for farmers to more easily grow and harvest their crops.

An automated kiwi picker created by Robotics Plus is showcased in a video on LinkedIn, shared by Santosh Swamy. The robot uses its computer to identify the ripe fruit and harvest only these kiwis.

High school students in Bartin, Turkey are learning about greenhouse production and high-tech greenhouse production know-how. As a part of the project, the students are learning about hydroponic production in a remote-controlled greenhouse. The students were involved in all parts of the production…

Experts from British research institute Rothamsted Research are currently testing the latest in artificial intelligence for farming. It is the world’s largest agricultural robot, the Field Scanalyzer. This international research centre focuses on strategic agricultural science, and trials on the Field…

Customers at the ShopRite of Carteret, NJ, can order fresh salads with Sally the Salad Robot, which offers a contactless and individualized salad bar experience at a time when many people are looking for alternatives to traditional salad bars. Sally uses groundbreaking, advanced robotics and self-service technology to prepare and dispense made-to-order salads and healthy meals.

With a few taps of Sally’s screen, a customer can create a nutritional meal with favorite fresh ingredients that are safely protected in airtight, refrigerated containers. The fresh food robot contains 22 ingredients, including dressings, fruits, nuts, vegetables and proteins such as chicken, eggs and ham. Sally can combine two main base ingredients, up to six toppings and a dressing to make a custom salad, grain bowl or pasta salad. Sally also offers several chef-recommended recipes such as the Chicken Brown Rice Bowl or Cobb Salad, and users can view nutritional and calorie details for each ingredient. Customers can tailor that nutritional information to their own dietary needs by adding or subtracting ingredients from their order.

A fruit picking robot scheme led by Saga Robotics in Lincoln will receive nearly £2.5 million as part of a new UK government funding initiative to drive efficiency in food production. The ‘Robot Highways’ project aims to act as a catalyst for a sustainable farming industry in the future by maintaining or…

Amazon unveiled its six-wheel delivery robot, Scout, in January 2019, but has only been slowly expanding its field tests. After launching in a single neighborhood in Snohomish County, Washington and then adding a larger site in Irvine, California last August, Scout is now undergoing trials in Atlanta, Georgia and Franklin, Tennessee, Amazon announced today.

During the first edition of Studio RoboCrops, you will learn first-hand the key challenges identified by growers of cucumber, sweet peppers, eggplants and soft fruit, concerning the automation of their harvesting process. Which developers are currently working on commercial robots for a range of crops?…

An innovative project in Nottingham that converts carbon dioxide into clean animal feed is 1 of 9 pioneering agricultural technology projects set to benefit from £24 million of government funding. Science Minister Amanda Solloway said: "From robotics assisting our farmers in fruit picking, to technology…

While robotic short order cooks have been in development for a few years now, their use in actual customer-facing businesses has been largely restricted to either independent or gimmick restaurants. But that changes today as Miso Robotics, maker of F...

Palletizing bags in the tightest of spaces is always a challenge for automation engineers. Bremen-based company AKON Robotics has delivered a robot bag palletizing system to a customer in Austria, where a new gripper technology for bag palletizing is used in addition to the adaptation to the confined…

An Israeli company that has created an autonomous pollinating robot has started its first trials in Australia. Arugga AI Farming is hoping its technology can transform Australia's greenhouse farming sector, especially greenhouse tomatoes, which are currently pollinated by hand. Chief executive Iddo…

Frontier IP, a specialist in commercialising intellectual property, today announces that Robert Bosch Limited ("Bosch") has entered into an agreement to work with portfolio company Fieldwork Robotics ("Fieldwork" or the "Company") to accelerate the development of its novel robot technology to harvest…

When UK farmers found themselves short-staffed due to Covid-19 travel restrictions, the government launched a campaign urging the public to cover the shortfall and “Pick for Britain”. With the recruitment campaign struggling to convert applicants into farm workers and Brexit already disrupting the supply…

The corona pandemic has once again demonstrated how dependent agriculture is on seasonal workers, but Norwegian growers may get help from robots next year. For Norwegian growers, the development of autonomous robots cannot move quickly enough, especially now that many of them are struggling to find…

When UK farmers found themselves short-staffed due to Covid-19 travel restrictions, the government launched a campaign urging the public to cover the shortfall and “Pick for Britain”. With the recruitment campaign struggling to convert applicants into farm workers and Brexit already disrupting the supply…