From Concept to Market: How Organifarms Developed BERRY Based on Franka Production 3

Key Takeaways:

  • Organifarms developed BERRY, a harvesting robot, to revolutionize sustainable agriculture.
  • BERRY is based on the Franka Emika Production 3 and has innovative software and image recognition technology for high precision and accuracy in strawberry harvesting.
  • BERRY’s benefits include higher quality, better-tasting strawberries, improved customer satisfaction, and increased harvesting speed and productivity.
  • BERRY’s environmentally friendly features, such as reducing the use of chemicals, make it a sustainable and ideal solution for farmers.
BERRY is a harvesting robot designed to pick strawberries without touching the fruit, while also checking the quality and degree of ripeness of each fruit before harvesting.

Organifarms, a company dedicated to sustainable agriculture, has recently launched a new product called BERRY. BERRY is an innovative harvesting robot that was designed to revolutionize the strawberry farming industry. Organifarms utilized the Franka Emika Production 3 robot to create BERRY, incorporating specialized software and image recognition technology to allow the robot to detect the quality and degree of ripeness of each fruit before harvesting.

Background to Organifarm’s BERRY

The Franka Emika Production 3 is a collaborative robot that is designed to work safely alongside humans in industrial and manufacturing settings. It has a range of features that make it an ideal platform for developing automation solutions. The robot has seven degrees of freedom, which means that it can move in a variety of ways and can perform tasks that would be difficult or impossible for traditional robots. Additionally, the Franka Emika Production 3 is designed to be easy to program and to integrate with a variety of software and hardware platforms.

Organifarms recognized the potential of the Franka Emika Production 3 to transform sustainable agriculture, an industry that has traditionally been labour-intensive and environmentally damaging. By creating BERRY on the foundation of this robot, Organifarms developed a product that is efficient, precise, and sustainable. Through specialized software and image recognition technology, BERRY can identify the quality and ripeness of each fruit before harvesting, guaranteeing only the best strawberries are picked. Furthermore, the robot’s individual settings for each punnet allow for customized fruit, leading to enhanced customer satisfaction and sales. In summary, BERRY offers a transformative solution for sustainable strawberry farming, with the potential to improve the industry’s efficiency, profitability, and environmental impact.

Development Process

Organifarms spent two years developing BERRY, with a particular focus on autonomous navigation through greenhouses, row switching, and high precision. By integrating specialized software and image recognition technology, BERRY can determine the fruit’s quality and ripeness accurately, set individual settings for each punnet, and place picked strawberries directly into the punnets for sale.

BERRY’s Features and Benefits

One of the key features of BERRY is its ability to harvest strawberries without touching the fruit, using a cutting mechanism that removes the stem of the strawberry. This ensures that the fruit is not bruised or damaged during the harvesting process, leading to higher quality and better-tasting strawberries. Additionally, the robot’s innovative software and image recognition technology allow it to detect the quality and degree of ripeness of each fruit, ensuring that only the best strawberries are harvested.

BERRY’s ability to set individual settings for each punnet is also a significant benefit. This means that customers can choose their preferred variety, ripeness, and filling level for each punnet of strawberries. The robot’s high precision and accuracy ensure that each punnet is filled exactly to the desired weight, leading to improved customer satisfaction and sales.

Another key benefit of BERRY is its efficiency. The robot is able to work 24 hours a day, using modern batteries that can be recharged quickly and easily. It is also able to autonomously navigate through the greenhouse and switch rows, allowing it to cover a large area quickly and efficiently. The robot can store up to 8 crates of strawberries, which means that it can transport up to 40 kilograms of fruit before needing to be emptied. This significantly increases the overall harvesting speed and productivity, leading to improved profitability for farmers.

In addition to its efficiency, precision, and quality control capabilities, BERRY also has significant environmental benefits. Traditional strawberry farming can be environmentally impactful due to the use of pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals. BERRY’s precision harvesting and customization capabilities mean that farmers can reduce their use of chemicals, leading to a more sustainable and environmentally friendly farming practice.

Organifarms’ BERRY is a revolutionary product that has the potential to transform sustainable agriculture by automating the process of harvesting strawberries while ensuring the highest quality and sustainability standards. By leveraging the Franka Emika Production 3, Organifarms was able to create a product that is precise, efficient, and sustainable, making it an ideal solution for farmers looking to improve their operations and reduce their environmental impact

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