Developing Autonomous Pruning for Specialty Crops

Pruning of tree and vine crops is typically performed manually and accounts for the second largest labor costs, after harvesting.  As well as the cost of labor, the availability of labor is a major concern. This project was initiated to address these concerns, and investigate whether advances in fields such as machine vision and robotics could be applied to developing autonomous pruners for grape and apple.  This SCRI-funded project includes participants in the fields of pomology (Baugher, Hirst, Schupp), viticulture (Tarara), engineering (Park, Kak, Koselka, Wallach), economics (Seavert) and rural sociology (Glenna, Patel-Campillo). This multi-disciplinary team is focused on developing new technology, evaluating that technology, and determining the barriers to adoption.

Previous work by our commercial partner, Vision Robotics Corp, has developed an autonomous pruner for grapevines that is currently being refined. It is undergoing field testing and should be commercially available by the end of the 4-year project. With apple, we have formulated a set of “rules” that describe optimal pruning and are currently evaluating those rules in terms of the physical attributes of the canopy structure. The engineering team is developing a 3D imaging decision system, and robot control technologies for automating dormant pruning operations. The socio-economic team will determine social and economic impacts of the proposed autonomous pruning system.

Pruning of tree and vine crops is typically performed manually and accounts for the second largest labor costs, after harvesting.  As well as the cost of labor, the availability of labor is a major concern. This project was initiated to address these concerns, and investigate whether advances in fields such as machine vision and robotics could be applied to developing autonomous pruners for grape and apple.  This SCRI-funded project includes participants in the fields of pomology (Baugher, Hirst, Schupp), viticulture (Tarara), engineering (Park, Kak, Koselka, Wallach), economics (Seavert) and rural sociology (Glenna, Patel-Campillo). This multi-disciplinary team is focused on developing new technology, evaluating that technology, and determining the barriers to adoption. Previous work by our commercial partner, Vision Robotics Corp, has developed an autonomous pruner for grapevines that is currently being refined. It is undergoing field testing and should be commercially available by the end of the 4-year project. With apple, we have formulated a set of “rules” that describe optimal pruning and are currently evaluating those rules in terms of the physical attributes of the canopy structure. The engineering team is developing a 3D imaging decision system, and robot control technologies for automating dormant pruning operations. The socio-economic team will determine social and economic impacts of the proposed autonomous pruning system.