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ROBOTS
OUTSTANDING IN THE FIELD
Canadian innovation field testing for robotic broccoli harvesting
performed in Quebec.
The future is now, as Industry 4.0 in
agriculture melds with robot broccoli
pickers.
Developed by Lapalme Groupe Conception Mécanique
of Varennes, Quebec, the Sami 4.0 is an intelligent
multifunctional agri system—a robot—that can perform
the work of traditional hand pickers of vegetables
utilizing a vision system and robotic arms linked to
artificial intelligence. By adding a mobile app, farmers
will even be able to manage a harvest on their smart
phone.
It can work at the same tempo as a human harvester,
except cut more because of the multiple robotic
harvesting arms.
Founded by company president Éric Lapalme, he
conceived the idea after a visit to his family farm in
the summer of 2018, while watching workers harvest
broccoli.
“I began to look at the pickers with my eyes as an
engineer and to dissect the eyes, intelligence and arms
process necessary to carry out the act of picking,”
explained Lapalme, an engineer by trade. “At that time,
I was working on the automation of a factory and the
idea came to me to bring robots to the fields.”
Simon Belanger, the Business Development Director
for Lapalme Agtech added: “On different projects, he
had already developed advanced vision mechanics
and robotic arms and realized he could develop a
technology to fill the labour gap.”
Lapalme was surprised to discover, after checking with
the patent office, that he was the first to conceive of
such a concept.
“In the summer of 2020,” noted Belanger, “we wanted
to de-risk the technology, so we created a very
preliminary prototype to test the vision and the robotic
arm. The results were conclusive, and we decided to
invest our money and go for it.”
Belanger explained that the company received
$1.1-million from the Quebec government as well as
$500,000 from the NRC (Canada), and created its
Lapalme Agtech subsidiary. “We then worked hard to
have our RPC 4.0 demonstrator at the Expo Champs
trade show in St-Liboire and were the highlight of
the show. We’ve since been in the field finalizing the
programming configurations and gaining exceptional
results.”
Guided by 2D and 3D camera systems, Sami 4.0 uses
its vision system to detect, position and qualify the
broccoli. Following the detection, an analysis is made
by artificial intelligence, which is sent to the robotic
arms, telling it to harvest the crop—or not—based on
its maturity/ripeness. A waterjet system using 50,000
psi is applied to cut the broccoli.
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ANDREW JOSEPH
FARMS.COM
PHOTOS: lapalmeagtech.com,
Yuriy Bucharskiy/iStock/Getty Images Plus