Robotic Berry Picker Nearly Ready For Market

Robotic Berry Picker Nearly Ready For Market CROPS Miscellaneous Gary Wishnatzki is getting closer to having a robot pick his strawberries The Florida grower and his chief technical officer Bob Pitzer have been working on the robotic picker for about 4 years Mounted on an autonomous vehicle the robotic heads select and pick fresh ripe strawberries Berries are then sent to a packing area where they are placed in containers by weight and covered for shipping “It can gently cup a berry with its soft silicone claws and pluck it without damaging it ” says Wishnatzki Harvest CROO Robotics “We can’t say it can reliably compare with human pickers yet We’ve gone through several iterations and are still refining it We still have some bugs to work out in the hardware and software ” Financing for the project has come from growers/shippers like Wishnatzki the National Science Foundation and others Prototype pickers have progressed from a single head mounted on rails to simulate traveling through the field to units mounted on a modified tractor The current prototype is a self-propelled platform with wheels spanning 6 rows It uses GPS to travel through the field and LIDAR to avoid hazards The machine has 16 picking heads Each has a high-speed video processor and opposing custom-built cameras to provide stereo vision “It processes images at about 30 gigabytes of high definition images per second ” says Wishnatzki “It is able to identify berries ready for harvest as well as those that aren’t using a ripeness value We set a threshold for each level of ripeness based on color Anything that exceeds the threshold gets picked ” Each head consists of 6 sets of picker claws that rotate to pluck strawberries as well as rotating around the plants looking for berries Plastic fingers push the foliage aside to expose berries to the cameras and the claws The current picking rate is 8 seconds for a single plant The machine moves between plants in 1 1/2 seconds and can pick up to 8 acres a day The goal is to cut the picking time in half Eventually the robotic system will also collect data on each plant recording productivity as well as insect pests and disease Growers will have yield maps for fields and be able to accurately compare inputs and varieties Projected benefits include being able to operate at night and during the cooler part of the day enhancing quality of the berries and reducing cooling costs “Every year we have learned things ” says Wishnatzki “We are still 2 to 3 years from commercialization ” When the picker is ready to be introduced Harvest CROO plans to lease the machines to growers for less than they now pay field labor Demand for the machines is already high among strawberry growers Difficulty finding the field labor needed to pick a field every 3 days up to 40 times a season means plants can go unpicked Finding labor for picking high-value field crops isn’t limited to strawberries Wishnatzki also raises raspberries blackberries and blueberries and sees potential for the picker with those crops as well However the demand doesn’t stop there “We’ve been contacted by quite a few major crop and trade organizations as well as individual growers/shippers from field tomatoes to bell peppers table grapes and tree fruit ” says Wishnatzki Check out a video of the Harvest CROO in action at FARMSHOW com Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Harvest CROO LLC 100 Stearns St Plant City Fla 33563 ph 813 498-4278; www harvestcroorobotics com

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.