Automato shall define a technology for 3D imaging of tomato plants, which has the potential to identify and detect tomatoes, leaves, branches, buds, shoots and flower clusters in 3D – with sufficient accuracy for a robot to care for and harvest a tomato plant.
If Norwegian commercial greenhouses are to remain competitive in relation to foreign competitors, especially regarding tomato and cucumber cultivation, we must achieve more profitable operation, including automation. Repeated attempts have been made to automate and robotise tomato harvesting, with varying success, but this is not in large scale use. The downside of a robot that solely harvests tomatoes is that it potentially only replaces 20% of the total manual work involved with caring for and harvesting tomato plants, and therefore risks standing idle for much of the season.
The project expects to gain a clear understanding of the challenges of depicting tomato plants in 3D. The hope is that it will be possible to design a realistic robotic system concept for the care and harvesting of tomato plants.