Pontus Files International Patent Application for Automated Vertical Farm Harvesting Robot

Jun 09, 2021

VANCOUVER, BC - Pontus Protein Ltd., is pleased to announce that it has filed an international patent application through the Patent Coordination Treaty with the World Intellectual Property Organization for Pontus' proprietary Harvesting Automated Robotic Vehicle or "HARV" for short. HARV is a vertical farm rack system and automated plant tending and harvesting robot designed to work along side and assist Pontus' Closed Environment Vertical Aquaponics System or CEVAS system.

Pontus' initial crop, water lentils, is the fastest growing leafed plant.* Pontus' CEVAS helps accelerate the growth of Pontus' water lentils, requiring the plant to be harvested every 24 hours. Pontus developed the HARV technology to allow the crop to be automatically harvested daily. In addition, due to its low profile, HARV will enable Pontus to stack nine levels of vertical farming at its Surrey, British Columbia production facility.

Steve McArthur, Chief Technology Officer, Pontus, stated, "Talking with the experienced team at Automation Experts (an automation and innovation company based in Calgary, Canada), we were able to identify that there was no robot out there that handled everything we needed it to do. By harvesting the crop in situ, using HARV, we will reduce the space between the water beds and increase the number of levels, increasing efficiency and the yield. We are beyond excited about pairing HARV with our CEVAS system, as we see CEVAS as a greener, more ecologically sustainable way of producing high nutrition food products."

Stephen Bruce Wong, CEO, Automation Experts, added, "HARV is more than a mechanical tool for harvesting. It will manage the farm and give us critical insight and data regarding the optimization of the growing environment. The robotics in HARV will allow Pontus to eliminate moving parts from the structure thus lowering the cost to build Pontus' vertical farms as the water beds can be dumb and do not need the technology built into them. It also uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to support all aspects of the growing process."

The patent filing is part of the technology leadership in the aquaponic space that Pontus continues to secure.

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