Thread: Israeli Company Works on Robotic Apple Picker

Israeli company works on robotic apple picker

Companies in Israel and California are the only two in the world actively working on developing robotic apple pickers as a solution to a shortage of human pickers.




Dan WheatCapital Press
Published on October 17, 2017 9:24AM

FFROBOTICS

FFMH-Tech picker uses a three-pronged hand on end of robotic arm to pick apples into a basket that feeds onto a conveyor.




An Israeli entrepreneur says he will have a robotic apple picker ready to market at the end of 2018 or the beginning of 2019. Avi Kahani, CEO and co-founder of FFMH-Tech Ltd. in Emeq-Heffer, Israel, says he was managing an apple orchard in the late 1980s and was “haunted” by the idea of a mechanical solution to picking apples. But he didn’t have the resources to follow through until 2014 when he formed his company to develop a robotic fresh fruit harvester, first concentrating on apples. FFMH is the initials for Fresh Fruit Mechanical Harvester.A robotic apple picker could be a significant solution to the shortening supply of human pickers in Washington, the U.S. and fruit producing areas.FFMH-Tech — also known as FFRobotics — and Abundant Robotics, of Hayward, Calif., are the only two companies in the world actively working to commercialize a robotic apple picker, said Jim McFerson, director of the Washington State University Tree Fruit Research and Extension Center in Wenatchee, Wash.The Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission, also in Wenatchee, has granted $500,000 toward development of Abundant Robotics’ picker. FFRobotics also has a proposal before the commission for funding, said Karen Lewis, Washington State University Extension tree fruit specialist. Abundant Robotics has said its goal is to have a robotic apple picker ready for commercial use in orchards in the fall of 2018. Kahani, who is a mechanical engineer with experience in infrastructure software, told Capital Press that he didn’t know anything about Abundant Robotics when he started his project. He said he successfully field tested his prototype in Israel in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

“The potential markets are more or less worldwide with the U.S., Canada, Italy, France, Poland and other countries as main entry points,” he said. Like Abundant Robotics, Kahani has not announced a retail price but has said it should give growers a return on their investment in two years. Abundant Robotics uses a robotic arm and vacuum tube, guided by a computer aided by cameras and sensors, to detect apples, suck them off trees at one apple per second and deliver them into bins. The picker detects 95 percent of apples and isn’t bothered by leaves or new growth but can be obstructed by limbs.FFRobotics uses several robotic arms with three-pronged grippers for picking and placing fruit onto conveyors, which take it to bins without vacuum tubes. The machine “combines precise but simple robotic controls, fast and accurate image processing and advanced algorithms for picking and distinguishing usable produce and damaged, diseased and unripe fruit,” according to the company website. It is adaptable to apple variety and tree canopy structure. The harvester can pick thousands of apples per hour and 85 to 96 percent of a crop, depending on the tree shape, classic trimmed or two-dimensional fruiting wall, Kahani said.It can pick 10 times more usable fruit than the average human picker and has future capability of data collection and analysis regarding fruit picked per tree, acre and orchard, according to the website. Kahani said the machine is adaptable for picking pears, peaches, citrus fruits, mangoes and pomegranates.



http://www.capitalpress.com/Orchards...m8wpWQ.twitter

Another reason we need Global Population Control NOW.

People need to stop having 10 kids they cannot afford to feed, educate and take care of living in poverty with NO job prospects.

And taxpayers do not want to pay to feed them!

Citizenship granted to robot

Walmart to employ robots to help restock shelves

Germany has developed a robotic weed killer - NO TOXIC PESTICIDES NEEDED - pretty sure that will never reach the market, montsanto, dow, bayer will make sure of that. Their profits are way more important than preventing asthma, cancer in our citizenry, children.

The politicians they contribute and lobby to will aide them just like they are now - including pruitt, epa; they won't even ban absolutely known brain damaging pesticides now. No way they will let a robot weed destroyer stop their billions in profits.

Roomba Inventor Launches 'Tertill', a Weed-Killing Robot For Your Garden

116

Posted by BeauHD on Wednesday June 14, 2017 @06:00AM

mcpublic writes: iRobot veteran and Roomba co-inventor, Joe Jones is a modest man with a big mission: to create robots that make agriculture more efficient, less tedious, and yes, maybe even one day feed the world. After a decade at Harvest Automation building greenhouse robots, his new team at Franklin Robotics has developed Tertill, an affordable, waterproof, solar-powered robot that continuously whacks weeds around your yard.

MIT Technology Review calls Tertill "a Roomba for your garden." Today the Kickstarter campaign went live and already they are well on the way to their goal.According to the Kickstarter campaign, Tertill is solar powered, chemical free, waterproof and Bluetooth compatible. It doesn't actually pull the weeds from your garden, instead it uses a "spinning string trimmer" to trim the weeds down to ground level.

Since Tertill will be trimming weeds daily, the company says the weeds will eventually run out of nutrients to continue growing, and therefore will die and decompose. How does it know what's a weed and what's a plant? "A plant tall enough to touch the front of Tertill's shell activates a sensor that makes the robot turn away. A plant short enough to pass under Tertill's shell, though, activates a different sensor that turns on the weed cutter.

Because Tertill's approach is height-based, put one of the provided plant collars around short plants until they are tall enough for Tertill to recognize. When Tertill approaches the collar, it will recognize it and turn away."

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...ver-apartments

BoniRob - Weed Killing Robot - Behold The Future - YouTube

▶ 3:32

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvZkhKDWn84
Feb 3, 2016 - Uploaded by UPHIGH Productions
Weed-Killing Robot Developed: No Herbicides Needed.

Could a new robot developed by the German company, Bosch, known for making car parts and power tools in partnership with the German food and agriculture department, Osnabrück University, and Amazone, actually end the need for herbicides on farms?

It’s called BoniRob, and it can learn what weeds look like, travel through fields, and pluck them up faster than a speeding bullet (well, not really that fast). It kills weeds so fast, it’s almost impossible to see it in action. Using an extension that is less than 0.4 inches wide, it stamps down small weeds in one go, and with a few more attempts, it gets rid of larger ones.

According to Bosch, the robot is about the size of a small car, and uses the same type of laser-radar vision system that Google’s self-driving cars use to navigate the world. Using artificial intelligence, it is shown pictures of leaves of weeds and undesirable plants, then goes after them, row after row.

’We are leveraging our expertise in sensor technology, algorithms, and image recognition to make a contribution to improving quality of life, even in areas that are new for Bosch,’ says Professor Amos Albert, a robotics expert and general manager of the Bosch start-up Deepfield Robotics.

According to estimates, agricultural yields need to increase by three percent a year to keep up with population growth. Along with innovative agricultural technology and improved crop protection, more efficient plant breeding will play a particularly important role.

In this area, Bonirob automates and speeds up analysis. The robot, which is approximately the size of a compact car, uses video- and lidar-based positioning as well as satellite navigation to find its way around the fields. It knows its position to the nearest centimeter. It also helps minimize the environmental impact of crop farming.”

The robot also gets better with practice. When testing on carrot patches, BoniRob got rid of about 90% of the weeds, as reported by Popular Science.

It is being tested now on real farms, and can run for 24-hours straight, though it is powered by gasoline. Perhaps future models could be solar driven? It certainly beats spraying our crops with copious amounts of herbicides and cancer-causing chemicals, though there are improvements to be made.

And of course it means a more robotic world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvZkhKDWn84