Objective
The main problem of harvesting green asparagus is the great need of seasonal workers. Usually between 1.5 and 2.5 workers are needed per ha. The high labour costs and unsatisfying working conditions have created over the last four decades the demand for a partial mechanization of the harvesting process. The increasing labour costs and the lack of in time labour supply have forced the asparagus farmers to optimize the harvesting process and to introduce harvesting aids. Several types of machines for the support of manual harvesting are available. However, all approaches towards fully automatically harvesting have failed so far, mainly for the following reasons:
a) None of the currently available harvesters approach the yield and quality of hand harvesting, because of the aggressive harvest mechanization
b) Damage to emerging spears with its immediate negative effect on yield and/or lack of profitability has slowed or stopped further experimentation or commercialization
The AmLight project will overcome the current problems of automatically harvesting by implementing the following objectives:
• Research & development of the AmLight detection system
• Research & development of a harvesting mechanism
• Research & Development of a self-driven carrier unit
• Research & Development of a control program
Topic(s)
Call for proposal
FP7-SME-2012
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
BSG-SME - Research for SMEsCoordinator
21614 BUXTEHUDE
Germany