ScaleForImpact: Enabling robots to have a real impact on the soft fruit industry

ScaleForImpact：让机器人对软果行业产生真正的影响

• 批准号: 10026849
• 金额: $ 108.94万
• 依托单位: SAGA ROBOTICS LIMITED
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Collaborative R&D
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=10026849
• 关键词: ScaleForImpact; Enabling; robots; real; impact

Uncertainty over access to seasonal migrant labour is placing the otherwise vibrant UK fresh produce and soft fruit production under unprecedented pressure. The immediate impacts of Brexit and COVID-19 have and are restricting availability to the 69,000 seasonal migrant workers who travel to the UK each year to harvest over £1bn of fruit and vegetables. Robotics and automation technology offers a permanent solution that can disconnect the sector from its labour dependency, whilst also creating high skilled jobs and growth for the UK robotics sector. However, critical challenges remain to develop robotic technology that can be scaled in such a way that it will have a significant impact on the industry. This will require thousands of robots to be deployed over the next few years to perform a wide variety of tasks such as picking, plant protection, inspection, etc. Currently, no agricultural robotics companies are able to scale their robot deployment at a speed that will have a significant impact on the industry within the next couple of years.Robots have proven their potential in agriculture by delivering spraying, mechanical and precision weeding, UV treatment and many other services as a commercial service to growers. The number of robots operating at a commercial scale in open fields globally is very low (not currently anticipated to be more than a few thousand). There is a need for a few very specific technological advances and operational changes before we are in a position to scale this globally. This project will develop the fundamental and underpinning technology that will take us from deploying a few robots to selected growers to a position where we deploy hundreds of robots delivering commercial services at a wider scale across the UK by 2024\.Our project synthesises and demonstrates the outputs of multiple Innovate UK funded research and innovation projects. It represents the last step towards full large-scale deployment of agricultural robots in soft fruit production. While previous projects have developed technology that underpin the services that Saga Robotics are currently providing to commercial customers today at a small scale (~30 robots), this project will focus on developing fundamental technology needed to scale agricultural robots in the UK. The identified technological gaps are related to efficient and cost-effective deployment and operation of robots in the open field without the need for constant supervision by humans.

获得季节性移民劳动力的不确定性使原本充满活力的英国新鲜农产品和软水果生产面临前所未有的压力。英国脱欧和 COVID-19 的直接影响已经限制了每年前往英国的 69,000 名季节性移民工人的就业机会。收获超过 10 亿英镑的水果和蔬菜，机器人和自动化技术提供了一个永久性的解决方案，可以使该行业摆脱对劳动力的依赖，同时也为英国机器人行业创造高技能就业机会和增长。然而，开发机器人技术仍然面临着严峻的挑战。技术规模化将对行业产生重大影响，这将需要在未来几年内部署数千台机器人来执行各种任务，例如采摘、植物保护、检查等。目前，没有一家农业机器人公司能够以在未来几年内对该行业产生重大影响的速度扩展其机器人部署。机器人通过提供喷洒、机械和精准除草、紫外线处理，已经证明了其在农业领域的潜力和许多其他服务作为商业服务全球露天田地中进行商业规模作业的机器人数量非常少（目前预计不会超过几千台），在我们进入这一阶段之前，需要进行一些非常具体的技术进步和操作变革。该项目将开发基础和支撑技术，使我们从向选定的种植者部署几个机器人到到 2024 年在英国更广泛地部署数百个机器人提供商业服务。我们的项目综合并展示了它是多个创新英国资助的研究和创新项目的成果，代表着在软果生产中全面大规模部署农业机器人的最后一步，而之前的项目已经开发出支持 Saga Robotics 目前向商业客户提供的服务的技术。如今，该项目规模较小（约 30 台机器人），将重点开发在英国扩展农业机器人所需的基础技术。已确定的技术差距与机器人在露天场地的高效且经济高效的部署和操作有关。需要持续的监督人类。