Cooperative robots developed to harvest table grapes

Researchers from the Institute of Robotics and Industrial Informatics (IRI) and the Agricultural Mechanization Unit (UMA) of the UPC are working with other research centers and European companies in the development of robots that collaborate in the tasks of harvesting and pruning vineyards. table grapes

Collaboration between robots and people in the industrial sector is increasingly common in the context of Industry 4.0, but not in the agricultural environment, where the development of innovative technologies based on robotics and Artificial Intelligence is still very incipient. , despite being considered essential for the sustainable agriculture of the future. Now, ten European partners, including the Polytechnic University of Catalonia · BarcelonaTech (UPC), participate in the European project CANOPIES with the aim of exploring a new paradigm of collaboration between people and robots in the context of precision agriculture for permanent crops, specifically, in the harvesting and pruning operations of table grape vineyards.

Within the framework of this European project of the H2020 program of four years and a budget of 6.9 million euros, research centers and leading companies in the robotics sector in Europe, coordinated by the Università degli Studi Roma Tre , in Italy, will demonstrate how a team of robots works in a coordinated and collaborative way – both with each other and with people – in the tasks of harvesting, pruning and transporting grapes, an initiative that opens the door to new perspectives in the management of grapes. crops and agricultural holdings.At the UPC, the project is led by Alberto Sanfeliu , researcher at the Institute of Robotics and Industrial Informatics (IRI) – a joint center of the UPC and the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) – in collaboration with the Agrarian Mechanization Unit (UMA) – linked to the Barcelona School of Agri-Food and Biosystems Engineering (EEABB) –, with researcher Emilio Gil at the helm.

Perfect the relationship between machines and humans

Beyond working effectively autonomously, the robots developed in this project will be able to help each other and collaborate with people. This is the key point of the research, as explained by the researcher leading the project at the IRI, Alberto Sanfeliu: "Until now, there has been little work on how people and robots relate in the different processes of agriculture. The great The change of this project lies in the fact that robots will help in the harvesting and pruning tasks not only in an automated way, but also by collaborating with human beings and among themselves. This type of collaboration is beginning to be seen in factories, but it is not common in agriculture."

The IRI's task within the framework of the project focuses, precisely, "on the development of science and technology that must allow this interaction between people and robots, on how they help each other to carry out the joint harvest of grapes", explains Sanfeliu, a researcher also in the Artificial Vision and Intelligent Systems (VIS) research group and professor at the Barcelona Higher Technical School of Industrial Engineering (ETSEIB) .

At the IRI, robot perception systems are also developed, through computer vision technologies, so that they are able to identify in the vineyards the grapes that are at the ideal point of ripening, the peduncle through which they have to cutting, as well as detecting which branches need pruning and how it should be done, tasks that require a high level of precision.

As a center specialized in agricultural mechanization and precision agriculture, the UMA's participation in the project focuses on the implementation of the different operations and processes involved in agriculture so that the robots integrate all the functions of agricultural machinery, adapted , in this case, to the tasks of harvesting, pruning and transporting the grapes.

Revolutionizing an ancient agricultural tradition

The challenge of using robotics for harvesting and pruning requires the development of complex processes of perception, communication, shared planning of agreements, prediction of human intentions, interaction and action. Under these premises, CANOPIES fills the current gap in the development of fully autonomous robotic solutions for permanent crops, with a great impact on the industry and society.

According to Andrea Gasparri, researcher at the Università degli Studi Roma Tre, coordinating institution of the project, "CANOPIES not only represents a great opportunity to achieve a more sustainable agricultural paradigm, but also offers the opportunity to make agriculture attractive for the generation younger. This is achieved through effective collaboration between people and robots, which involves cutting-edge solutions in robotics, artificial intelligence and virtual reality solutions." Thus, cutting-edge solutions are offered to revolutionize an ancient agricultural tradition and ensure that the work of harvesting high-quality table grapes can be done more efficiently, while increasing productivity.