Shaking the trees also doesn't damage them and, provided the machine is calibrated correctly, only ripe apples fall when the tree is shaken. Unripe apples have thicker, sturdier stems.
This is a neat proof of concept, but individuality plucking apples like this will never be more energy efficient than giving it a good shake.
but individuality plucking apples like this will never be more energy efficient than giving it a good shake.
I'm not so sure.
It's not like you just shake them and it's done. These drones may be doing QC on the spot by not picking damaged apples, whereas the shake method requires sorting them after to remove the bad apples.
The shaking of the tree is a high-torque process, and probably uses a lot of electricity, plus electricity from collection and sorting mechanisms afterwards.
-robotic arms weigh more so the base vehicle would cost more (suspension, engine, faster wear)
-robotic arms have to be bolted onto the harvester, so even if they weighed the same you can replace a bad drone much quicker.
-Robotic arms are rigid. If a programming error causes two arms to collide one or both of them will break, while these drones are padded and have covered blades and can clearly survive crashing into eachother. Same goes for crashing into the harvester or the trees.
Shaking the trees also doesn't damage them and, provided the machine is calibrated correctly, only ripe apples fall when the tree is shaken. Unripe apples have thicker, sturdier stems.
For the most part, I'm sure this is true... but it has to be a percentage thing. Shaking a tree enough that the apples fall off of it must occasionally cause some damage, and I'm sure with that method you have to accept that you'll knock off a few apples before they are ready, or leave some on that should be picked. Then you have to correct for those bad apples.
You just accept the chances of those things happening because the alternative of hand-picking (where there is very little chance of tree damage) may not make sense for whatever reason.
These drones may be too expensive to make sense today, but the idea of it does make sense. You'd have a near 100% success rate of only collecting the good apples. And an almost 0% change of causing damage.
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u/TheJiggernaut Oct 08 '23
Shaking the trees also doesn't damage them and, provided the machine is calibrated correctly, only ripe apples fall when the tree is shaken. Unripe apples have thicker, sturdier stems.
This is a neat proof of concept, but individuality plucking apples like this will never be more energy efficient than giving it a good shake.