Someday , apples in due north Georgia could be harvested by robots model after the gibbon , an arboreal ape species that swings from limb - to - limb in the wood canopy , hunting and picking ripe yield to eat up . Called “ brachiation , ” or arm vacillation , their method of locomotion inspired the design of the Collaborative Apple Picking Robot ( CAPBOT ) , an orchard apple tree - harvest robot forge by engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology .
At the Southeast Regional Fruit and Vegetable Conference in Savannah last January , Ai - Ping Hu , senior research engineer in Georgia Tech ’s Food Processing Technology Division , explain how CAPBOT uses a “ search ” arm to place apples and architectural plan pathways for the “ compass ” sleeve to go about and pick the yield . Each arm is equipped with a color - plus - depth camera . While one manus can agnize apples and direct the other hand to pick them , the machine ca n’t measure the ripeness of the fruit . Researchers are presently work to advance the clutches arm with that ability .
When the theme is agricultural research in Georgia , the University of Georgia is the organization most often credit . And when UGA and Georgia Tech run into in the same condemnation , specially around Thanksgiving , they ’re typically colliding on the football game field for another historical round of clean , old - fashioned hate .
But what you see on the gridiron is 180 degrees from the kinship the two schools parcel in the farm fields of Georgia . There they turn in harmony — and often full - fledge partnership — to improve the productivity and profitability of various sector of Georgia agribusiness .
deterrent example of productive collaboration include :
Agricultural engineeringGlen Rains , an agricultural engineer in UGA ’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences , is knead with the Georgia Tech Research Institute to improve the peanut - grading summons . After harvest and drying , goober pea are manually sampled and scrutinize for size , moisture content , nitty-gritty capacity , foreign matter and damage . grade give to peanuts find the price a farmer will get at the market for his harvest , as well as the loanword note value for price - financial support aim .
“ It ’s done with the human eye and has been done this way since the 1950s , ” apply thou of seasonal worker , enounce Rains .
Through a combination of engineering science that include digital imaging that allows a calculator to visit and rank the sample , this quislingism aims to streamline the operation and improve efficiencies .
HorticultureMark Czarnota , a UGA CAES horticulturist establish in Griffin , Georgia , is collaborating with biologist Ulrika Egertsdotter and Cyrus Aidun at Georgia Tech on the micropropagation of Abies firma ( Momi fir ) , blueberry and stevia . Abies firma could be Georgia ’s answer to North Carolina ’s recurrent Christmas tree favorite Fraser fir . The scientist are search for a reliable agency of propagate this conifer for the southeasterly Christmas tree industriousness using somatic embryogenesis .
The blueberry / stevia labor is seem at quicker , more efficient ways to broadcast these plant .
record more atcaes.uga.edu
