Researchers at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington have developed imaging technology to be used in an intelligent harvesting machine to minimise wastage. Annual waste for certain crops can be up to 60%, according to farmers who were consulted during research.
 NPL’s researchers are working with KMS Projects and Vegetable Harvesting Systems to turn the technology into an intelligent harvesting machine, which can look beneath the leafy layers of a crop, identify the differing materials, and enable precise size identification.
The robot will use radio frequencies, microwaves, terahertz and the far infra red to safely penetrate the crop layers and identify the size of the harvestable material for a relatively low cost. NPL has developed a methodology for crop identification and selection focusing on cauliflowers, one of the hardest crops to measure owing to its large area of leaves.
Dr Richard Dudley, project leader at NPL, said: “Our aim is to develop a machine that will dramatically improve farming productivity.”
A successful demonstration of the imaging technology was given recently at the Fanuc Robotics site in Coventry. |
