2022 - Comprehensive Video - Team Euterpe - AsparaBot: Autonomous Asparagus Harvesting Robot

2022 UCLA combined mechanical and electrical/computer engineering capstone project comprehensive video for Team Euterpe

Students: David Chong (ECE), Heidi Kwong (MAE), Jacobi Gunsalus (MAE), Jeffrey Yu (ECE), Karina Ting (MAE), Pompiliu Girlonta (ECE), Sruthi Mukkamala (MAE), Susan Ke (MAE), Zach Yuan (MAE)
MAE162E Section 3 - Instructor: Jacob Rosen - TAs: Peter Walker Ferguson, Hanbyeol Yoon
ECE183DB Section 1 - Instructor: Ankur Mehta - TA: Yusuke Tanaka

Abstract: The asparagus industry has a very serious labor shortage that is expected to continue to worsen (Brandenberger et. al. 2017). This is exacerbated by the fact that asparagus is seasonal and can only grow for 60-90 days per year, only has about a day-long window where the asparagus can be harvested, and requires skilled labor to harvest (Asparagus Production, 2021). In response to this problem, some companies have resorted to moving their farms to other countries where labor is in higher supply and is less expensive, and some have sponsored foreign workers to work in their U.S. farms on a seasonal basis (Asparagus, AMRC). The issue with these approaches is that although larger companies can afford to do this and in general have more resources, small local farms don’t have these same options. To solve this problem, we propose an automated asparagus harvesting robot, AsparaBot. This robot will be a low-cost solution to the intense labor demands of asparagus farming. It will be targeted specifically toward small farms of 1 acre or less who lack the financial resources to hire large amounts of labor at short notice. Here we present our engineering work after a quarter of brainstorming and preliminary design and another quarter of engineering design and prototyping.