Robots began to pick apples for export worldwide. Photo

In March, 2019 the T&G Global company which is engaged in cultivation of fruit and vegetables announced the beginning of use of robots for collecting of apples. The agreement with the Californian startup of Abundant Robotics was for this purpose signed.

Robotic tractors are used in gardens of the New Zealand region Hawke's Bay to collecting of different sorts of apples which then arrive as on local market, and go for export.

Abundant Robotics robots began to pick apples for export worldwide

The system of recognition of apples based on computer vision is capable to distinguish a fruit from branches and leaves and to define ripeness of fruit. To break apple, the manipulator sticks to it, without putting damage to fruits.

T&G Global noted that gardens were specially prepared for cleaning by means of robots. Such preparation, in particular, consisted in dense planting of trees and their special podstriganiye.

The Abundant Robotics robot sucks in apples on a tree

The operating officer of T&G Global Peter Landon Lane (Peter Landon-Lane) says that the technology well supplements manual work, helping to collect the most part of fruits, many of which are highly above the ground. The innovation allowed to lower requirements to physical training of employees and to increase labor productivity, he added.

Development of the automated collector of apples requires the parallel solution of several complex technical issues: from visual determination of ripeness of the collected fruit and physical manipulation of it without drawing dents before safe movement on a plantation — the head of Abundant Dan Steere reported.

Abundant has several other robots held for use in agriculture. For example, one of machines uses artificial intelligence for determination of a maturity of strawberry, and another uses "the built-in color and infrared sensors of short-range depth" for the analysis of fruit and data recording.^[1]

Robotics

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