The robot is the fruit of a collaboration among three Israeli Institutes of higher learning including Ben-Gurion University, the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Agricultural Research Organization and the American Purdue University. Its commercialization is expected in less than two years.
Harvesting melon is a labor intensive activity. A team of Israeli and U.S. researchers has designed a vision-endowed, melon-picking robot to do the job. The machine consists of a mobile platform on which are mounted an image-processing system, air blowers and a mechanical arm with a gripper attached. As a tractor slowly pulls the platform through the field, cameras take pictures that the system analyzes. (The air blowers ruffle the foliage to expose the fruit.) When the harvester sights a melon bigger than a certain size and therefore presumed to be ripe it extends the gripper to grab the fruit and lift it off the ground. Knives connected to the gripper slash the stalk, and the gripper places the melon on a conveyor belt.