Robotic Fruit Tree Harvester

Informazioni relative al progetto

ROBOHARVEST

ID dell’accordo di sovvenzione: 954038

DOI

10.3030/954038

Progetto chiuso

Data della firma CE 2 Giugno 2020

Data di avvio 1 Luglio 2020

Data di completamento 31 Dicembre 2022

Finanziato da

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Costo totale

€ 3 071 255,00

Contributo UE

€ 2 149 878,50

Coordinato da

FFROBOTICS LTD
Israel

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ROBOHARVEST (Robotic Fruit Tree Harvester)

Periodo di rendicontazione: 2021-07-01 al 2022-12-31

Sintesi del contesto e degli obiettivi generali del progetto

The project's overall objective is to achieve – at its end - a fully comprehensive and highly efficient robotic solution to orchard management.
The solution enables sustainable fruit production by empowering growers with management solutions enabled by robotic machines that perform critical operations in the orchard. The key benefits of the system include:
- Sustainable for growers, the supply chain, and consumers
- Empowering growers with data insights and impactful recommendations
- Intelligent robotic machines that deliver quality and value

The solution described above is intended to solve the difficult issues of recurrent annual seasonal recruiting of temporary human labourers (importing workers from other countries, old workers retire and young ones do not want to work in the field), the rising direct and ancillary (housing, food, transportation, insurance) costs of such employment, timely twigs-pruning, bloom- thinning and fruit-picking which are highly dependent on the availability of skilled labour (precise timing for these actions is crucial to the final quality of the fruits), and substantial improvement of grower’s profitability.

Lavoro eseguito dall’inizio del progetto fino alla fine del periodo coperto dalla relazione e principali risultati finora ottenuti

Up to the time of this reporting period extensive efforts were directed at improvement of the mechanical/robotic performance, upgrading and optimization of the vision algorithm to reach a high level of recognizing the object (twigs, bloom, fruit best suited for picking). These efforts resulted in a fully robotic machine ready for commercial use in picking fresh fruit (pruning and thinning abilities will be completed to a commercial level in the following development phases), which will be finally tested in Israel this harvesting season.

Despite the effects of Covid-19, FFRobotics continues to approach the EU markets - France, Italy and England, and already established working relationships with a leading manufacturer in France and growers around the region.

Progressi oltre lo stato dell’arte e potenziale impatto previsto (incluso l’impatto socioeconomico e le implicazioni sociali più ampie del progetto fino ad ora)

Progress can be summarized by the achievement of a fully commercial machine, self-propelled from the beginning of the tree row to its end, capable of automatically picking fresh fruit and conveying the fruit to a bin located on the machine - all done without human touch.

FFRobot Harvesting in Israel 2020

FFRobot During harvesting Israel 2020