5 ms·

I would have to disagree on that point; speed is vitally important for equipment like this. Speed and accuracy determine how many of these machines you would n

by evgen 9y ago

I would have to disagree on that point; speed is vitally important for equipment like this. Speed and accuracy determine how many of these machines you would need during the short window of peak ripeness. Speed determines how long it will take to get a return (if any) on the capital investment required for the machine. There is a reason that agricultural equipment is so large and most of it has to do with the short window a farmer has available for harvest. A machine that harvests an acre an hour might be useful, a machine that harvests an acre a day is a tourist attraction.

ipsum2 9y ago
I don't have any experience in the commercial farming space, but since we're talking about strawberry picking here, aren't they picked far before the time that they're ripe, and ripened after using ethylene? (This is the main reason strawberries don't taste as good as they used to)
- zdragnar 9y ago
  That is entirely owing to the time between the farm and the customer's mouth, not the time it takes to pick. There's still a small window where the fruit is grown enough to be edible (and a desirable size) but not so ripe that it is overripe by the time you buy it.
- wil421 9y ago
  Everything is picked before it's ripe otherwise you could only ship something like a day away. Most vegetables and fruits don't really need to ripen on the plant. But there is a fine line. I picked some peppers from my garden yesterday. A few are not as ripe as I want so I put them into a bag with a banana. Bananas produce more ethylene and by tomorrow all peppers should be red. No taste impact.
Retric 9y ago
It's a cost vs. speed trade off, if a machine can do the work of 2 people or 20 people is not the important bit. The important bit is if they can get more work done at lower costs. So, something that get's 1/4 as much work as a person done, but works unattended and only costs 1,000$ then that's a great investment.
- irrational 9y ago
  But, if the crop has started to rot on the vine because the machine is only doing 1/4 the work, then doesn't the cost become meaningless? Plants are different than metal. A robot building a car can go slow and the metal will still be the same.
  - protonfish 9y ago
    Then get 4 machines.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago
      And now you're back to the cost problem...
      - wernercd 9y ago
        If it costs 1/4 of a person and you have to get 4 machines... then it still solves the problem of being unable to find willing workers. Hell... if it costs more than employees you can't find... then to get the work done, it costs more... Then it's either market forces push prices up or companies close. A large portion of the point of these "machines" is an answer to the labor shortage (and to a lesser extent, the rising cost of labor - IE fight for 15). Many of these problems will be solved by market forces - higher demand, more people working to solve the issues, issues getting solved, machines going into mass production, economies of scale, rinse, repeat...
- ju-st 9y ago
  That's why speed is a "simple" problem. The mechanical design and detecting the fruits are real problems. A machine that tips over and picks leaves is useless no matter how fast it is.
- WalterBright 9y ago
  A machine can also work 24/7, meaning that a machine that works as well as one person can replace 4 people.
scottLobster 9y ago
Wouldn't the endurance of the machines play into that though? I imagine not needing breaks/sleep might offset the relatively slow picking speed, depending on how fast they recharge/discharge.
hinkley 9y ago
The internet is telling me that there are 17,424 feet of rows in an acre of plants if the rows are 30 inches apart (eg, corn). The internet also tells me that the average California farm is about 400 acres (a little less than 2/3 of a square mile). 400 * 17424 ~= 7 million feet of row. Million. That's 1320 miles if you want to walk or ride the whole thing one row at a time. I think you're right about speed mattering a great deal.
Animats 9y ago
Speed, cost, and product quality all matter. Harvesting mechanization has been a slow progression from easy crops (wheat) to medium difficulty crops (cotton) to moderately hard crops (grapes) [1]. Just about everything which can be picked by some clever combination of blades, blowers, brushes, shakers, springy tines, and vacuums has been done. The final frontier is the ones that need eye-hand coordination. Today, you need a smartphone's worth of compute power, good vision and control software, and very good mechanical engineering. There are demos of machines picking almost everything; it's now a student project at ag schools. Here's an orange picker, built using an off-the-shelf robot arm. Too slow to be useful. [2] The electronics cost is no longer the problem; its the mechanical parts. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDDVdBLHY7I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDDVdBLHY7I [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnQ94JFqYZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnQ94JFqYZY

by evgen 9y ago

ipsum2 9y ago

I don't have any experience in the commercial farming space, but since we're talking about strawberry picking here, aren't they picked far before the time that they're ripe, and ripened after using ethylene? (This is the main reason strawberries don't taste as good as they used to)

zdragnar 9y ago
That is entirely owing to the time between the farm and the customer's mouth, not the time it takes to pick. There's still a small window where the fruit is grown enough to be edible (and a desirable size) but not so ripe that it is overripe by the time you buy it.
wil421 9y ago
Everything is picked before it's ripe otherwise you could only ship something like a day away. Most vegetables and fruits don't really need to ripen on the plant. But there is a fine line. I picked some peppers from my garden yesterday. A few are not as ripe as I want so I put them into a bag with a banana. Bananas produce more ethylene and by tomorrow all peppers should be red. No taste impact.

Retric 9y ago

It's a cost vs. speed trade off, if a machine can do the work of 2 people or 20 people is not the important bit. The important bit is if they can get more work done at lower costs. So, something that get's 1/4 as much work as a person done, but works unattended and only costs 1,000$ then that's a great investment.

irrational 9y ago
But, if the crop has started to rot on the vine because the machine is only doing 1/4 the work, then doesn't the cost become meaningless? Plants are different than metal. A robot building a car can go slow and the metal will still be the same.
- protonfish 9y ago
  Then get 4 machines.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago
    And now you're back to the cost problem...
    - wernercd 9y ago
      If it costs 1/4 of a person and you have to get 4 machines... then it still solves the problem of being unable to find willing workers. Hell... if it costs more than employees you can't find... then to get the work done, it costs more... Then it's either market forces push prices up or companies close. A large portion of the point of these "machines" is an answer to the labor shortage (and to a lesser extent, the rising cost of labor - IE fight for 15). Many of these problems will be solved by market forces - higher demand, more people working to solve the issues, issues getting solved, machines going into mass production, economies of scale, rinse, repeat...
ju-st 9y ago
That's why speed is a "simple" problem. The mechanical design and detecting the fruits are real problems. A machine that tips over and picks leaves is useless no matter how fast it is.
WalterBright 9y ago
A machine can also work 24/7, meaning that a machine that works as well as one person can replace 4 people.

scottLobster 9y ago

Wouldn't the endurance of the machines play into that though? I imagine not needing breaks/sleep might offset the relatively slow picking speed, depending on how fast they recharge/discharge.

hinkley 9y ago

The internet is telling me that there are 17,424 feet of rows in an acre of plants if the rows are 30 inches apart (eg, corn). The internet also tells me that the average California farm is about 400 acres (a little less than 2/3 of a square mile). 400 * 17424 ~= 7 million feet of row. Million. That's 1320 miles if you want to walk or ride the whole thing one row at a time. I think you're right about speed mattering a great deal.

Animats 9y ago

Speed, cost, and product quality all matter. Harvesting mechanization has been a slow progression from easy crops (wheat) to medium difficulty crops (cotton) to moderately hard crops (grapes) [1]. Just about everything which can be picked by some clever combination of blades, blowers, brushes, shakers, springy tines, and vacuums has been done. The final frontier is the ones that need eye-hand coordination. Today, you need a smartphone's worth of compute power, good vision and control software, and very good mechanical engineering. There are demos of machines picking almost everything; it's now a student project at ag schools. Here's an orange picker, built using an off-the-shelf robot arm. Too slow to be useful. [2] The electronics cost is no longer the problem; its the mechanical parts. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDDVdBLHY7I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDDVdBLHY7I [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnQ94JFqYZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnQ94JFqYZY