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Robots pick mushroom and mow the grass

An University of Warwick product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Mar 8, 2006

Research engineers and horticulture specialists are working together to devise a suite of robots and automated systems that could transform farming and horticulture over the next decade.

Robots are on the march again into the last bastion of labour intensive industry - farming and horticulture.

Research engineers and horticulture specialists at Warwick University are working together to devise a suite of robots and automated systems that could transform farming and horticulture over the next decade.

The researchers from the university's horticultural arm, Warwick HRI, and its manufacturing engineering section, Warwick Manufacturing Group, are working on a number of robotics and automation products that will vastly reduce the labour costs of farmers and growers.

Those projects include a robotic mushroom picker - the robot uses a charged coupled camera to spot and select only mushrooms of the exact size required for picking, achieving levels of accuracy far in excess of human labour.

The mushrooms are then picked by a suction cup on the end of a robotic arm.

While the speed of picking is currently just over half that of a human, the robot can be set to pick 24 hours a day right through the night without the need of a break.

The researchers also hope to increase the speed of picking to much closer to that of a human worker.

The researchers have also helped an agricultural machinery company Aeropick develop a group of inflatable aids to harvesting which provide huge savings on labour costs.

The inflatable conveyor system can be driven into an open field or covered growing area.

Within minutes, up to 100m of powered conveyor belt can be deployed allowing crops to be processed at high speed straight to cool storage, or washing, or simply sorted and graded while still in the field.

Mowing the lawn is a drudge but for growers, farmers, even golf course owners, with large amounts of grass land, it's a massive problem with every tractor requiring a skilled employee to manage such pastures.

Researchers in the Warwick Manufacturing Group are developing a method that can allow a farmer or grower to deploy multiple robotic grass cutting machines at the same time all under the supervision of just one employee.

They are working with the Ransomes Spider grass cutting device, which can already be remotely controlled and can even mow on 40-degree inclines.

They are replacing that remote control with a computer that can use its own data sensors attached to the mower to travel autonomously across fields working in groups with other robotic mowers to ensure that the field is mowed as quickly as possible.

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