12/31/07 Grasping at Fruit

Grasping at Fruit. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Robotics in the orchards is something that in some ways still seems like something out of the Jetson's. A lot of things have to change and new technologies have to be invented. One of those technologies is something we all take for granted. The ability to reach out and grasp something gently enough to not damage it but firmly enough to manipulate it. The robotic hand was the topic of a recent session at the Washington State Horticulture Association's annual convention in Wenatchee. Dave Barrett is the Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Design for Olin College. BARRETT: To do something like apple picking there's a lot of problems you guys know very, very well. You have to be able to pick all the apples off a tree very reliably, you want to make sure you don't bruise them or damage them in the process, the system has to be low cost but beyond that and those academic interests this thing has to be agriculturally hard. You have to be able to wash it off with a pressure washer at the end of the day. Any time you bring the word technology into the picture, it just seems the price tag goes up and according to Barrett that is a concern. BARRETT: At the end of the day it has to be commercially viable. I don't think there's a single person in this room that can afford a robot picking system that costs $2.5 million dollars. You've got to get these systems down into the 20, 30, 50-thousand dollar range. Barrett says this is not science fiction anymore. BARRETT: The basic message here is these arms aren't 25 years in the future, they're not impossible. You can buy one right now and you can begin to implement it into a whole lot of applications. If you get the right mix of technology and you can get a good advocate on the other side pulling it into the corporations, it can succeed phenomenally well. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.