Salad harvest with robots

CAMBRIDGE-I UNIVERSITY
Location: Cambridge, UK

The harvesting of lettuce is difficult to mechanize with robots because of the sensitivity of the plant and its proximity to the ground. But researchers at Cambridge University have made a breakthrough with the so-called “Vegebot” machine, a prototype of a special computer vision-based agricultural robot.

Basic operation. One camera scans the lettuce itself, and the AI signals to detect it or not. A second camera (near a knife) then picks the lettuce without damaging the plant. That is, a machine learning algorithm “teaches” the robot to avoid immature or diseased lettuce.

The vegebot doesn’t yet work with the speed or dexterity of a human hand, but after a series of tests it has proven the success of the concept, which could work well for other above-ground fruits, vegetables and grains.

“Every field is different, every head of lettuce is different. But if we can use a robotic machine for iceberg lettuce, we can use it for many other crops.”

While a scalable, commercial robot for harvesting lettuce remains elusive, efforts to develop one have accelerated. In 2017, for example, John Deere acquired Blue River Technology CV’s Agtech system, which has made remarkable strides in lettuce-focused robotics.