Submitted by Dr O. Hadeler on Thu, 11/07/2019 - 17:00
The bio-inspired robotics group led by Fumiya Iida has combined machine learning with its robots to advance automated lettuce harvesting.
Lettuces are extremely difficult to harvest automatically. The group has developed the robot over the past few years - from a lab setting into testing in the field.
The robot uses computer vision to identify the lettuces. Machine learning helps the vision system to detect lettuces in different lighting conditions. A specially developed cutting robot then cuts the lettuce at the correct height without crushing them.
Read and view more about this research here.
Reference:
Simon Birrell et al. ‘A Field Tested Robotic Harvesting System for Iceberg Lettuce.’ Journal of Field Robotics (2019). DOI: 10.1002/rob.21888