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Robot hand could harvest blackberries better than humans

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Re: Robot hand could harvest blackberries better than humans

#61

Post by [deleted] »

m463 wrote: post #35
Animats wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several kinds of blueberry picking machines. There are air-blast pickers that blow the berries off the plant. There are ones with wheels of vibrating sticks. There are ones that get a comb around the plant and pull. Some berries get damaged, yes. Some leaves and twigs get through. They're separated out by a very fast vision-based sorting machine before packing.[1] That's been standard technology for a decad…

> Ask "could you pressure-wash this thing"? Is that a necessary requirement? I mean, that would probably damage current harvesters, who are human people. I mean, there are lots of parts of cars where pressure washing would probably force fluid into the bearings. Might that not apply to hydraulic, pneumatic or electronic systems too? (I do get what you're saying though)

[deleted]

Re: Robot hand could harvest blackberries better than humans

#62

Post by [deleted] »

elcritch wrote: post #38
m463 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ask "could you pressure-wash this thing"? Is that a necessary requirement? I mean, that would probably damage current harvesters, who are human people. I mean, there are lots of parts of cars where pressure washing would probably force fluid into the bearings. Might that not apply to hydraulic, pneumatic or electronic systems too? (I do get what you're saying though)

Yes, powerwashing would be wanted. That's an IP69K, not too hard to hit with some basic mechanical protections. Unless you need delicate sensors which need direct contact to samples to work. Maybe it's not a complete necessity, but generally it's gonna be mixed in with big farm equipment that is power washed. The more you have to "coddle" the equipment the less cost effective it'll be for farmers. Farm workers genera…

[deleted]

Re: Robot hand could harvest blackberries better than humans

#63

Post by [deleted] »

elcritch wrote: post #38
m463 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ask "could you pressure-wash this thing"? Is that a necessary requirement? I mean, that would probably damage current harvesters, who are human people. I mean, there are lots of parts of cars where pressure washing would probably force fluid into the bearings. Might that not apply to hydraulic, pneumatic or electronic systems too? (I do get what you're saying though)

Yes, powerwashing would be wanted. That's an IP69K, not too hard to hit with some basic mechanical protections. Unless you need delicate sensors which need direct contact to samples to work. Maybe it's not a complete necessity, but generally it's gonna be mixed in with big farm equipment that is power washed. The more you have to "coddle" the equipment the less cost effective it'll be for farmers. Farm workers genera…

[deleted]

Re: Robot hand could harvest blackberries better than humans

#64

Post by 9rx »

m463 wrote: post #35
Animats wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several kinds of blueberry picking machines. There are air-blast pickers that blow the berries off the plant. There are ones with wheels of vibrating sticks. There are ones that get a comb around the plant and pull. Some berries get damaged, yes. Some leaves and twigs get through. They're separated out by a very fast vision-based sorting machine before packing.[1] That's been standard technology for a decad…

> Ask "could you pressure-wash this thing"? Is that a necessary requirement? I mean, that would probably damage current harvesters, who are human people. I mean, there are lots of parts of cars where pressure washing would probably force fluid into the bearings. Might that not apply to hydraulic, pneumatic or electronic systems too? (I do get what you're saying though)

> Is that a necessary requirement?

Strictly it needn't be if it offers an even better solution, but, realistically, what startup trying to introduce a new technology (that isn't cleaning technology) has time to also develop a novel way to clean things? It is such an unlikely scenario that it isn't worth considering.

Re: Robot hand could harvest blackberries better than humans

#65

Post by dmurray »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #39
ortusdux wrote: post #15

Having filled my share of blackberry flats, the first part of the picking motion is a ripeness check. You want the berry to be firm with a bit of give, and you want it to pull free from the plant easily. The force feedback sensors mentioned here seems to be for training purposes, but they would probably be better used on the finished grabbers to detect ripeness.

Yes, this. There's a certain way that ripe blakcberries (and raspberries) feel and pull away from the plant. After a while you just sort of understand the tactile sense of ripeness. So while this might pick blackberries without damaging them, I doubt they're going to be peak ripeness. Blackberries don't continue to ripen after they're picked so it's not like tomatoes where they can pick them kind of green and they ri…

For blackberries at home or in hedgerows, picking only the black ones has always been good enough for me. For raspberries, it's important that they come off the stem readily.

Maybe commercial pickers need to optimise differently and could pick every day and get every berry at its absolute peak? But I doubt that's the state of the art with human pickers at the moment: they get paid minimum wage and are assessed primarily on the weight they pick.

Re: Robot hand could harvest blackberries better than humans

#66

Post by 9rx »

bob1029 wrote: post #24
helltone wrote: post #14

Every time I see these headlines, the tech seems to be at least 10 years away from product. - demos done in a lab controlled environment without the crazy things that happen in a real world. - no humans nearby so none of the safety features that would be needed should this thing work alongside/near humans. - no regards for economics, expensive vision models, expensive hardware, no consideration for maintenance and re…

> no regards for economics This is the #1 killer every time. You will always find the most efficient farm machinery to be the least human-like in its design principles. The more it looks like something out of Mad Max the better. Unless we come up with a machine like the combine harvester for blackberries, no one is going to be interested.

> You will always find the most efficient farm machinery to be the least human-like in its design principles [...] the combine harvester

Oh? I find my human-based process for separating grain to be of the very same principles as the combine. The specific mechanics aren't exactly the same. For example a combine has a fan, while I have lungs. But the principle — using airflow to aid in separation — is the same.

The sprayer is the only piece of equipment on my farm I can think of that employs a different principle to do the job as compared to how I would do the job by hand.

Re: Robot hand could harvest blackberries better than humans

#67

Post by poulpy123 »

> The robotic gripper was tested on a range of objects, from hard items like a jar of pears and a can of beans to soft, flexible objects like a bag of potato chips and a T-shirt

This paragraph is weird because the article focuses on blackberries, and none of the example is even remotely close

Re: Robot hand could harvest blackberries better than humans

#68

Post by dagw »

bob1029 wrote: post #24
helltone wrote: post #14

Every time I see these headlines, the tech seems to be at least 10 years away from product. - demos done in a lab controlled environment without the crazy things that happen in a real world. - no humans nearby so none of the safety features that would be needed should this thing work alongside/near humans. - no regards for economics, expensive vision models, expensive hardware, no consideration for maintenance and re…

> no regards for economics This is the #1 killer every time. You will always find the most efficient farm machinery to be the least human-like in its design principles. The more it looks like something out of Mad Max the better. Unless we come up with a machine like the combine harvester for blackberries, no one is going to be interested.

In most cases if you want to machine harvest you have to design your field around that. A vineyard, for example, that is designed to be machine harvested looks very different from one that is designed to be hand harvested. So if you want to machine harvest blackberries at scale you probably have to plant and manage your blackberry bushes in a specific way to allow for machine harvesting.

Re: Robot hand could harvest blackberries better than humans

#69

Post by skeezyboy »

elcritch wrote: post #38
m463 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ask "could you pressure-wash this thing"? Is that a necessary requirement? I mean, that would probably damage current harvesters, who are human people. I mean, there are lots of parts of cars where pressure washing would probably force fluid into the bearings. Might that not apply to hydraulic, pneumatic or electronic systems too? (I do get what you're saying though)

Yes, powerwashing would be wanted. That's an IP69K, not too hard to hit with some basic mechanical protections. Unless you need delicate sensors which need direct contact to samples to work. Maybe it's not a complete necessity, but generally it's gonna be mixed in with big farm equipment that is power washed. The more you have to "coddle" the equipment the less cost effective it'll be for farmers. Farm workers genera…

>Farm workers generally know how to wash themselves. Source?

Re: Robot hand could harvest blackberries better than humans

#70

Post by skeezyboy »

baxtr wrote: post #55
helltone wrote: post #14

Every time I see these headlines, the tech seems to be at least 10 years away from product. - demos done in a lab controlled environment without the crazy things that happen in a real world. - no humans nearby so none of the safety features that would be needed should this thing work alongside/near humans. - no regards for economics, expensive vision models, expensive hardware, no consideration for maintenance and re…

I am not an "AI will kill all jobs" fan at all. Although when it comes to precedents, "robots" have (luckily) taken many jobs in agriculture already.

theres something noble about back breaking labour for little pay whilst the owner makes the bulk of the profit.... o wait theres not
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