Skip to main content

A robot that can peel lettuce takes us closer to automating delicate farm work

By

There are lots of barriers to automating agricultural work. The cost of robots is one and the difficulty of integrating them into supply chains is another. But a particularly big stumbling block is just how clumsy machine labor can be. That’s why new research from Cambridge University showing a robot that can peel a lettuce is a small but significant step forward.

Harvesting lettuces is time-consuming work. The vegetables grow close to the ground, have to be cut from their roots by hand, and the outer layers peeled off before packaging. There are automated solutions that help speed up this process up (one machines drops lettuce heads into bags; another cuts multiple heads at a time) but they only take care of part of the harvest. It still requires nimble human hands to do some of the work.

This new research from Cambridge University’s Department of Engineering shows that robots might take over soon though. In the video below, you can see a modified Sawyer bot picking the outer leaves off a head of lettuce. It’s slow but it does the job.

Interestingly, unlike other work we’ve seen improving robot dexterity, this doesn’t rely on any research breakthroughs per se, but instead combines existing robotics and AI elements into a new pipeline. Machine vision algorithms are used to identify the stem of the lettuce; a robot arm nudges it into the correct position if its off-center; and a 3D-printed suction nozzle then peels off the outer layer of leaves.

The team behind the solution, which is described in an aptly named paper “Achieving Robotically Peeled Lettuce,” say this system could also work for other vegetables.

“Lettuce leaf peeling is an interesting robotics problem from an engineering perspective because the leaves are soft, they tear easily and the shape of the lettuce is never a given,” said Cambridge University’s Luca Scimeca in a press statement. “The computer vision we have developed, which lies at the heart of our lettuce peeling robot, can be applied to many other crops, such as cauliflower, where similar information would be required for the post-processing of the produce.”

However, this robot is still going to need some upgrades before it hits the fields. It’s slow, taking 27 seconds to peel each lettuce (compared to just a few seconds for a human) and sloppy (it successfully removes the outer shell only 50 percent of the time). Still, the future is coming, and faster than ever.

Read more: Economists worry we aren’t prepared for the fallout from automation



from The Verge - Teches https://ift.tt/2R2gjMi
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Magic Leap is shipping across (most of) the US

By
As Magic Leap holds the first developer conference for its Magic Leap One mixed reality headset, that headset has started shipping across the contiguous United States, instead of in a set of select markets. The Magic Leap One Creator Edition costs $2,295, just like before, but there’s now an installment plan that starts at $96 per month. All orders are supposed to arrive within 60 days. The Magic Leap One Creator Edition went on sale in early August, and while Magic Leap has touted it as a fully functional device, it’s basically meant for people who want to design apps, games, or art for mixed reality. We were ambivalent toward the hardware, which we found limited, and we noted that Magic Leap hadn’t shown off a lot of material that showcased its potential. The company’s developer conference keynote has revealed several new projects. Among other things, Spider-Man studio Insomniac Games is building an experience that will let you grow a holographic creature on your tabletop, and...
Post a Comment
Read more

US carriers introduce Project Verify to replace individual app passwords

By
Four major US carriers — AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon — are joining forces to launch a single sign-on service for smartphones. The service, called Project Verify , authenticates app logins so that users don’t need to memorize passwords for all their apps. The companies say their solution verifies users through their phone number, phone account type, SIM card details, IP address, and account tenure. Essentially, your phone serves as the verification method with details that are hard to spoof. Users have to manually grant apps permission to use Verify, and it works similarly to how you might log into some services through Gmail or Facebook instead of using a unique account password. Of course, these apps also have to choose to work with Verify, and the program hasn’t listed any partners or when it intends to launch. The service can serve as your two-factor authentication method, too, instead of an emailed or texted code that can be intercepted. Users might not be totally sa...
1 comment
Read more

Huawei is reportedly planning foldable phone launch ahead of Samsung

By
A Nikkei report out of China this week has revealed Huawei’s efforts to build and release a foldable smartphone ahead of Android archrival Samsung. Samsung has long held the display innovation lead thanks to its subsidiary Samsung Display, which just announced that its upcoming “unbreakable” flexible phone screen has been certified for being extra tough and durable. But Huawei, making use of flexible OLED panels from Chinese supplier BOE, is apparently planning to do a very limited run of foldable handsets, with analysts estimating they could come as soon as early next year. BOE, which was dubbed Beijing Oriental Electronics at its outset back in 1993, won’t be a familiar name to most tech observers. Its display business has been rapidly improving in recent times, however, and the company has already secured some of Apple’s iPhone LCD business . BOE’s next foray is to push further into OLED production and innovation, which is where the flexible OLED panels that Huawei is mooted to...
Post a Comment
Read more