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Robocrop: world's first raspberry-picking robot set to work
- awakeasleep 7y agoblogspam for https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/26/world-first-fruit-picking-robot-set-to-work-artificial-intelligence-farming https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/26/world-fir... Also the title is bombastic, 25k/day is what they expect to be able to build by 2020
- finphil 7y agoFYI: The Guardian article is cited as a source.
- Animats 7y agoYes. This is an academic prototype. And it's really, really slow.[1] There are much better robotic fruit pickers.[2][3]. And the commercial ones that do this entirely by mechanical means.[4] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFemWAXx-3I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFemWAXx-3I [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaL3UxUclKY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaL3UxUclKY [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3SGScaShhw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3SGScaShhw [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt73GOk4JRY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt73GOk4JRY
- contingencies 7y ago1 = Raspberries outdoor. Camera and two-finger gripper + pull. 2 = Apples outdoor. Camera and three-finger gripper + twist + pull 3 = Strawberries indoor/outdoor. Camera and two-finger gripper + pull. 4 = Blueberries + raspberries outdoor. Multiple general agitator designs + fall. (see https://youtu.be/bt73GOk4JRY?t=100 https://youtu.be/bt73GOk4JRY?t=100) I think the fourth is the only honestly commercially viable option. However, it's never going to work with most fruit, because it relies upon general agitation to disconnect the fruit. Additionally, all of the solutions require neatly cropped rows. Whereas, the promise of robotics is that it will allow intercropping which creates more productive land with a stronger and more natural ecosystem, reducing outlays on pesticide, herbicide, fertilizer and related labour and increasing effective crop density and land use. None of these solutions even touch on these very real opportunities. FWIW, I am personally confident that my R&D team (who normally work on food production and packaging robotics) could produce a functionally superior prototype to the OP video in a matter of weeks, for a fraction of the budget.
- SmooL 7y agoAs mentioned, the "25k/day" is for a future model in 2020. According to a linked video in the article, a human does about 10k/day. I believe that right now we're at the very start of this. Robots were supposed to come for all our manual labor jobs years ago, but they never did, because if it's not a pure assembly line environment, robots can't cope with the uncertainty. Research in robotics is increasing and getting places fast, largely due to advances in reinforcement learning. I give it another 2 or 3 years until we have a robot hand with a camera that acts as dexterous and capable as a human hand. Once we have that, tons of opportunities like this raspberry picking are open for automation.
- PostOnce 7y ago"I give it another 2 or 3 years until we have a robot hand with a camera that acts as dexterous and capable as a human hand." -some guy, circa 1975
- varjag 7y agoThe original 1958 AI proposal was expecting to crack it over a summer hackathon.
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- jarfil 7y agoAlso, that's 25k/24h for the robot vs 10k/8h for a human. Taking into account that the time of day it's picked has a dramatic effect on a raspberry's taste, these robots may only be useful with artificially illuminated crops... or to pick those "raspberry shaped" flavorless things. Same goes for grapes and several other fruits.
- tty2300 7y agoI don't think that its that robots can't do these jobs but more that underpaid illegal migrants can pick strawberrys for cheaper than a robot setup and maintaince can.
- baylearn 7y agoI'll believe it when I see a video of the “final version”. Until then it's just like any other flaky and slow robot grasper demos out there trained using various flaky deep reinforcement learning algorithms.
- jlj 7y agoImagining if robots can pick raspberries at leak ripeness, in the near future one machine can do the same for all crops, plus weeding. This seems more economically viable than the current monoculture and chemical based approaches. And if one field can support a wider array of crops, they can produce more for local consumption, and lower transportation distances and costs.
- aequitas 7y agoThe future is already here: https://farm.bot/ https://farm.bot/
- vogre 7y agoThis kind of robot would take million gallons of water to build a piece.
- stefan_ 7y agoYou can not mix a bunch of random crops in one field. This is such a HN comment.
- inawarminister 7y agoWell you can, permaculture advocates do that but it's not viable for industrial agriculture yet, if ever. Of course, by random I mean specific crops chosen for their compability to each other... [0] https://deepgreenpermaculture.com/permaculture/permaculture-design-principles/9-diversity/ https://deepgreenpermaculture.com/permaculture/permaculture-... (I really like that image of corns, beans, and squash together from traditional Mesoamerican farming)
- squish78 7y agoYou absolutely can, they just can't be serviced with tractors or combines. Huge monoculture fields are a recent invention, and an unsustainable one.
- jlj 7y agoReplace "random" with "local" and "seasonal." Biodiversity and crop rotation are not whimsical HN topics. They have been around for a while. It works in my backyard garden and neighborhood urban CSA. The CSA could increase their production significantly if/when technology like this matures. Most of my local, seasonal produce needs can already be supported within a few block radius of my home. I too appreciate the diversity of thought on HN... lots of experts to share their knowledge.
- whazor 7y agoHearing my dad talk in the past about machine designs to automate both tomato and strawberry machines. He recommends cutting the stalk with either a laser or a scissor. This is significantly faster than trying to pick a vulnerable fruit.
- anonymous5133 7y agoLaser might cause a fire which is why they don't use it. I think best method is to simply mimic the human hand motion. You grab the berry but you put your two fingers over the stem and then pull down on the berry until the stem disconnects. This method might be even superior to the scissors method since you won't need to replace the scissors due to dullness.
- ed_balls 7y agoYes, my thoughts exactly. I'd imagine a sharp razors and a tube that sucks air (or a net) would be much cheaper than a robot that simulates a human hand to pick tomatoes. I wonder if someone experiment with some kind of scaffolding that would make fruits more exposed and easer to pick.
- pedrocr 7y agoIf you do that with raspberries then you need to have people process the fruit again as they're sold without stems. Tomatoes and strawberries are sold with stems as they don't detach without cutting. Don't know what the effect would be, commercially and in terms of preservation, of selling raspberries with stems.
- fiblye 7y agoI think if robotically trimmed fruits with stems sold for 10% cheaper than slow picked stemless fruits, there'd be no market left for stemless by the time the season is over.
- pedrocr 7y agoIf selling with stems works fine, no doubt. But raspberries detach from stems as they mature so you may end up with a messy box after a while. Or maybe this is just done because it's easy to pick manually by grabbing the fruit and picking with stems works as well. I'll have to try picking some with stems and see what happens.
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- prepend 7y agoThe whole time I expected it to just smash the berry. This would fit into the “one day this will be neat” vibe.
- ComodoHacker 7y agoI genuinely expected Raspberry Pi inside.
- taneq 7y agoI'm sure one of the end products will include pie.
- hevi_jos 7y agoWe used to call this "vaporware". Certainly with my own robots I can pick raspberrys much faster and better than those guys can currently do. This thing is extremely slow. I am wondering what kind of engineering those people have used for it to be so slow. Probably they are using java or python or mathlab code, instead of using things like C, shaders and FPGA code, expecting the creation of this low level code to be the "easy" part(in the future of course). From my experience, your greatest advantage is the ability to master those low level technologies. It has to be designed around this technologies and not as an after thought like this project looks.
- lnsru 7y agoHow can I reach you? Your design philosophy is very interesting!
- fiblye 7y agoAs someone working in automation, I don't think the real bottleneck here would be python. It seems more like it's waiting for accurate sensor input and trying to properly position itself. Slight mechanical imperfections with a delicate fruit like a raspberry means disaster, while a machine like this could probably recognize and tug apples off a tree without any delay.
- amelius 7y agoWith the current state of deep learning, this kind of application is so easy to make, it could be a science fair project.
- ptah 7y ago> "Analysts attribute this lack of economic efficiency to a shift towards more low-skilled jobs since the financial crisis, a lack of business investment and a decade of austerity." Stopping austerity would help then?
- marcus_holmes 7y agoI had a summer job picking raspberries on the Isle of Man. It was hard, boring, work. I left after only a few weeks, and got my first programming job (the island had a thriving offshore finance industry and no Manx coders). So I'm ambivalent about this. On the one hand, awesome that yet another crappy job is being automated. On the other hand, that job literally saved my life - I was homeless and struggling until that opportunity came along, and it lead on to a career that has kept me secure ever since. How do we replace the crappy low-skilled, low-paying jobs that we're automating, but that also allow people to stay alive while they sort themselves out?
- Theizestooke 7y agoredistribution of wealth.
- htmk 7y agoWhat about doing it without aggression?
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- tialaramex 7y agoRedistributing wealth isn't any more inherently aggressive than any other change. If people object violently to being asked to share the bounties of our industrial economy, that's no different from if they objected violently to being asked to put up with their sister marrying a woman, or to stop smoking in the restaurant.
- geomark 7y agoIsn't it the people insisting on taking a share who are the ones employing violence? If the people being asked to share say no then armed men show up.
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- notacoward 7y agoSo much for the HNer who confidently claimed that robots wouldn't be doing this kind of work any time soon, and used that as the basis for flaming me.
- serf 7y agodynamixel servos are a ton of fun to play with, if you ever have the chance. (the robot featured seems to be using MX-64T's on the wrist)
- cairo_x 7y agoFor the cost and maintenance of the machine over a year, you could probably exploit backpackers for--in my expert estimation--approximately one billion years.
- Pigback 7y agoNo Raspberry Pi inside?
- Maximus9000 7y ago"worlds first" seems to be a misnomer here. There are machines for tractors that can pick raspberries. The machine works by shaking the entire raspberry bush and collecting the berries that fall. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOG85YtZhII https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOG85YtZhII
- benj111 7y agoI suspect that damages a very large proportion of fruit, so either yield ends up being terrifically low, or its only suitable for jam. I suppose you could be pedantic and point out it isn't actually picking.
- iandanforth 7y ago3D printed parts and dynamixel servos do not inspire confidence.
- AngryData 7y agoI hate to be a downer but ill believe it when I see it. That robot is big, bulky, and does not look nimble or fast. A human could have picked a couple boxes worth of berries in the time it took that robot to decide to pick one berry. Anybody who has ever picked berries of any kind, be it strawberries or blueberries or blackberries will tell you, speed is the name of the game and even the average human versus an experienced picker isn't even a competition. An experienced picker is going to be grabbing multiple berries at a time with all of their fingers, not just one at a time. An experienced picker will have decided which berries to pick next before they even got done putting the ones they just picked into a basket which only takes a fraction of a second. You will get far better returns breeding and genetically modifying the plants to be easier to pick or shake the berries loose than any robot ive ever seen. Sure, it is technically feasible, but nobody is going to spend a million dollars on a robot that doesn't pick faster than an experienced human, it would take multiple decades to pay itself off even if you assumed the power and maintenance was free. Maybe in another 10 years it will be worth seriously looking into berry picking robots again, but berries are literally the hardest and most difficult fruit for a robot to pick. Uneven ripening, very delicate fruits, tangled messes of plant vines, very little maneuvering room, ect. It is like trying to automate a rally car before you are able to automate an oval track race.
- celticninja 7y agoThey did start with the hardest berries so that it's easier to work backwards for easier fruit. Also the plan is to hire them out to farmers at a price per kilo picked,which is aimed at less than the cost of a human.
- packet_nerd 7y ago> The world's first raspberry-picking robot The majority of raspberries are harvested by machine and have been for decades. Handpicking is only necessary for high quality fresh berries.
- yummypaint 7y agoIt picks ~700 per day at most, not counting acquisition and repositioning time for finding a new fruit. Article is intentionally misleading, video is a waste of time.
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