unproductive young shoots are
labor-intensive — all the while
collecting valuable data on the
health and vigor of the soil, fruit,
and vine stocks.
The Wall-Ye shown in
Figure 16 is the brainchild of
Christophe Millot who got his
inspiration after visiting a
vineyard in the southeast region
of France. A frustrated
winegrower, Denis Fetzmann
needed to have the leaves
pruned because the clusters
were too big, but they couldn't find
workers in the summer vacation
season. Millot told him he would
make him a robot.
It took three years — much longer
than he expected — even working
weekends and nights. Millot's greatest
challenge was to make the cameras
understand what they were seeing
and how to interpret the camera's
images. The robots are made in
France, but interest from growers in
New Zealand to California are making
Wall-Ye a viable product.
Most articles about vineyard
robots talk about 'grape picking'
versions. It turns out that actually the
harvesting of the grapes is a far
simpler task that a novice vineyard
worker can perform. Pruning is a
more precise undertaking in that the
worker must make decisions on the
health of the individual plant, and
make choices on where and what to
cut back.
Novice pruners have to be trained
each year, so hopefully the robot can
learn the process and the information
can be transferred to new robots
instantly. Pruning 600 vines per day is
not an easy task for a human, but a
robot can work longer hours with no
time off.
Millot is in the white shirt behind
the 44 pound Wall-Ye in Figure 17.
The 50 cm tall by 60 cm long robot
presently costs about $32,000 and
has built-in GPS localization, six
imaging cameras, and two arms.
Millot states: "Wall-Ye draws on
tracking technology, artificial
intelligence, and mapping to
move from vine to vine,
recognize plant features,
capture and record data on
health, bugs, disease, memorize each
vine, synchronize six cameras, and
guide its arms to wield tools. It also
has an in-built security mechanism
that is designed to thwart would-be
robot snatchers.
It navigates by GPS but also
recognizes each plant individually,
and can carry out special instructions
or follow up on previous work. If it
finds itself in a non-designated
vineyard, the robot won't start. It
also has a gyroscope so it knows if
it's been lifted off the ground. If that
happens, the hard drive self-destructs
and the robot sends a message to
the winegrower: Help!"
Vision
Robotics'
Intelligent
Robotic
Vineyard
Pruner
California has
long been known for
world-class wines, as
is the whole west
coast of the US. San
Diego based Vision
Robotics began
vision systems
1999. In 2004, it
began looking into various
agricultural applications, as well as
working with Washington state for
apple harvesting.
An advanced prototype of their
Intelligent Robotic Vineyard Pruner
was demonstrated back in 2010 at
SERVO 03.2014 79
Figure 18. Vision Robotics
vineyard pruner.
Figure 19. Vision Robotics robotic pruner
approaching a vine.
FIgure 20. Orange harvesting robot concept.
Figure 17. Wall-Ye pruner with developers
(note solar panel).