The SWEEPER-robot

The SWEEPER robot is the first sweet pepper harvesting robot in the world demonstrated in a commercial greenhouse. It is designed to operate in a single stem row cropping system, with a crop having non-clustered fruits and little leaf occlusion.

[stephanverbeeck]

This vision system uses its own SIDE illumination of the object!
By stroboscopically illuminating with 4 LED bars from bottom / top / left / right they can achieve a much better depth view (due to the cast shadow plus the angle at which the light is exposed per pixel can be translated at a slope angle to the camera and that in 8 directions).

The basic camera is already stereo vision in both horizontal and vertical plane with fixed illumination from the midpoint between the 4 lenses.

[stephanverbeeck]

do you notice the Sweeper robot wheel configuration?
It has 3 sets of wheels.
1) 2 powered wheels in the middle that support the weight and allow turning+steering by turning them at a different speed.
2) 2 castor wheels at the corners that support the weight in combination with set 1
3) track-wheels that support all the weight when the robot goes between the rows of plants

It seems they could not manage to keep the robot upright when the heavy robot had to drive over loose soil.
So all areas must be equipped with such tracks BEFORE the robot can be used.
And that alone makes the robot a VERY expensive system.

Not even talking about the size of that thing (it could be much smaller and lighter).
Given that the robot is also long and has to be followed by another automated vehicle that transports the empty and full boxes on-and-off . . . looks expensive BEYOND commercial profit.
It will not even be able to turn in many sites due to the limited steering capability.
So you also have to plan+build the building with this robot in mind.

[johny_doe]

cost of a one million euros for the robot and speed of 3 minutes per each vegetable. No thanks)