Descripción del proyecto
Brazos robóticos con visión tridimensional recogen el tomate perfecto
Los tomates son muy populares para la producción en invernaderos. Sin embargo, el proceso es complicado y requiere una atención diaria. Su recolección también requiere mucha mano de obra. En este contexto, en el proyecto financiado con fondos europeos GRoW se creará una tecnología robótica capaz de manipular los tomates sin causar daños físicos (magulladuras, cortes y abrasiones). Un avanzado sistema de visión tridimensional podrá identificar los frutos maduros entre las hojas y los tallos. Los múltiples brazos robóticos extensibles aumentarán la velocidad de recolección, y los terminales sensibles al tacto evitarán los daños y la pérdida de frutos. Esto permitirá cosechar tomates de forma rentable durante todo el año sin riesgo de sufrir escasez de mano de obra. De este modo, la cosecha se acelerará sin aumentar los costes de mano de obra.
Objetivo
The objective of the project is to demonstrate technological and business viability of the robotic harvesting applied in greenhouse farming of tomatoes.
To date no commercial product for automated operations on tomatoes is available because of complex R&D that a producer has to face for developing a device capable to handle this extremely damageable fruit.
Metomotion has found solutions to all the challenging technical steps, thereby allowing profitable harvesting of tomatoes and making it possible to growers to harvest the fruits throughout the year and not being exposed to labor shortage.
By doing so, the harvest speed is doubled and the labor costs are halved.
Moreover, our GRoW (Greenhouse Robotic Worker) will alleviate agricultural employees from back breaking work, permitting them to switch to more elevated tasks.
In the context of the Precision Farming approach, automation in the agricultural sector is particularly solicited and MetoMotion is offering a product capable to satisfy the most compelling needs of the growers.
The core innovations brought by MetoMotion consist of:
- Advanced 3D vision system to clearly identify ripe fruits among leaves and stems
- Extensible multiple robotic arms to increase harvest speed
- Touch sensitive terminals to avoid damage and loos of fruits
- Fully autonomous vehicle hosting embedding a box for the automated packing of collected fruits
First interactions with users have shown great interest toward GRoW product.
Within Phase 1 project, we will further explore the customer base to provide a comprehensive estimation of commercial potential relevant to GRoW.
To date, on extremely precautionary basis, we forecast MetoMotion’s production capacity of about 200 robots/year, generating revenues of about € 30 mln in 3 years of operation. This figure may be substantially reviewed in the course of the Phase 1 project.
Ámbito científico
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringautomotive engineeringautonomous vehicles
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagriculturehorticulturefruit growing
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencecomputer vision
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagriculturehorticulturevegetable growing
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringrobotics
Programa(s)
Convocatoria de propuestas
Consulte otros proyectos de esta convocatoriaConvocatoria de subcontratación
H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-1
Régimen de financiación
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinador
2161401 KARMIEL
Israel
Organización definida por ella misma como pequeña y mediana empresa (pyme) en el momento de la firma del acuerdo de subvención.