From robotic farm to table: Iron Ox unveils the first fully autonomous indoor farm

Iron Ox, a robotics company that is reinventing farming from the ground up, has launched the world’s first autonomous farm that harnesses advances in plant science, machine learning and robotics. The indoor farm will focus on increasing the availability, quality and taste of leafy greens, including romaine lettuce, lettuce and kale, and culinary herbs, including basil, cilantro and chives.

At Iron Ox, we’ve designed the entire growing process with a robotics-based approach, said Brandon Alexander, co-founder and CEO of Iron Ox, who previously worked at Willow Garage robotics lab and then at Google X. This means we’re not just adding a robot to an existing process, but designing everything, including our own hydroponic growing system, around robots.

On an average indoor farm, tasks like harvesting, seeding and plant inspection happen thousands of times a day. These labor-intensive, repetitive tasks are perfect for robotics, and by integrating machine learning and computer vision, Iron Ox is able to make its robots respond to the needs of each crop.

Iron Ox’s indoor farm is in full production with two key proprietary robotic systems: a robotic arm and a mobile conveyor. Both have been designed and developed to work in harmony with each other, with the mobile delivery system using technology similar to self-driving cars – sensors and computer vision – and the robotic arm analysing each crop at sub-millimetre scales. The proprietary cloud software acts as the brain for the ecosystem by tracking data, ensuring cohesion between all parts and monitoring the environment in real time. While the technology is at work, the Iron Ox team is also working with a dedicated plant science team focused on ensuring plant health, maximizing yield growth, defining and implementing standard operating procedures, and ensuring food safety in every system.

Not only are we growing sustainable and affordable produce, but we are also capturing a tremendous amount of actionable data, said Jon Binney, Iron Ox co-founder and CTO. This data set means we can make sure that every crop that leaves our farm is perfect, and with highly accurate algorithms to identify disease, we will have the largest crop data set in the world.

The World Resources Institute estimates that by 2050 we will need to feed 10 billion people, nearly double the amount of food we produce today. As problems such as growing labour shortages and energy consumption plague farmers, Alexander and Binney – who previously worked together at Willow Garage – recognise that the traditional model of agriculture is not working for our growing population. Iron Ox’s autonomous farming approach alleviates these key problems while allowing the company to produce 30 times more crops per acre than conventional farms. The company’s approach is also more sustainable than other modern farms, as it is designed to harness sunlight, complemented by high-efficiency LED lighting and a hydroponic growing system that uses 90% less water than conventional farming.

The Iron Ox team impressed us immediately. They are experienced roboticists on a mission to redefine agriculture,” said Vic Singh, founding principal owner of Eniac Ventures. By automating the entire farming process and gathering the largest data set around crop production, Iron Ox will dramatically improve agricultural production and bring the cleanest, freshest crops to market with the highest yields and efficiency. We’re excited to continue working closely with the team to build the farm of the future.

Form: https://www.roboticstomorrow.com/article/2018/10/from-robot-farm-to-table-iron-ox-unveils-the-first-fully-autonomous-indoor-farm/12614/