Robotic pruner for orchards and vineyards

Robotic Perception, an Israeli startup founded in 2019, is developing several autonomous and robotic solutions to support vineyards and orchards growers. As a result of their participation in the agROBOfood project, a Horizon 2020 project supported by the European Union, the company developed a patent pending solution to reduce spray drift with 25 percent. Because of that, the company isn’t open to reveal too much about that solution yet.

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Testing different cameras

Whilst awaiting the conclusions on their patent application, Robotic Perception brought a prototype of their robotic pruner to demo at World FIRA. For the occasion, their robotic arm with an electrically operated pruner was attached to the front of a New Holland T4.90N vineyard tractor as the startup is in an open collaboration with CNH Industrial.

Robotic Perception is currently testing different 2D and 3D cameras including well-known Intel RealSense and ZED cameras to detect the entire structure of the trees and to identify the right branches to prune/cut. That identification is done with the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) tools. The initial focus is on spur pruning grape vines which is relatively straight forward and simple according to the company. The pruner however had quite some difficulties finding the right branches during the live demo at World FIRA. That could however also be debit to the custom installation on the demo tractor for which quite a bit of improvising was required.

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2 hectares per day

The main motivation for developing a robotic pruning solution is the lack of labour and expertise in most countries on most continents although the initial focus is on France and Italy whilst South-Africa is also targeted. ‘Although in South Africa, available labour isn’t an issue yet’. Robotic Perception aims to commercialise their first product by the end of this year. A trailer with 6 or 8 (currently Chinese) robotic arms and electric pruners pulled by a tractor and powered by its PTO, should be able to prune and monitor up to 2 hectares of grape vines, apple or other fruit trees per day. A single robotic arm weighs about 30 kilos.

The solution is to be offered both as a service and as a piece of equipment. Whilst pricing is still undecided for, $ 150,000 could be an initial sales price target. Robotic Perception is targeting organisations such as CUMA in France and Confagricoltura in Italy to rent out the pruner to their members.