CROPS Clever Robots for Crops

In the EU-funded CROPS project robots are developed for site-specific spraying and selective harvesting of fruitand fruit vegetables. The robots are being designed to harvest crops, such as greenhouse vegetables, apples,grapes and for canopy spraying in orchards and for precision target spraying in grape vines. Attention is paidto the detection of obstacles for autonomous navigation in a safe way in plantations and forests. For the differentapplications, platforms were built. Sensing systems and vision algorithms have been developed. For softwarethe Robot Operating System is used. A 9 degrees of freedom manipulator was designed and tested for sweetpepperharvesting, apple harvesting and in close range spraying. For the applications different end-effectorswere designed and tested. For sweet pepper a platform that can move in between the crop rows on thecommon greenhouse rail system which also serves as heating pipes was built. The apple harvesting platformis based on a current mechanical grape harvester. In discussion with growers so-called ‘walls of fruit trees’have been designed which bring robots closer to the practice. A canopy-optimised sprayer has been designedas a trailed sprayer with a centrifugal blower. All the applications have been tested under practical conditions