Taking a Closer Look at Robotics in CEA
August 21, 2024 As controlled environment agriculture (CEA) advances, robotics continues to play a larger role in greenhouses and indoor farming environments. However, automating tasks in a CEA operation isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially since “simple” tasks for humans often aren’t simple for robots.
Why Robotics?
In a perfect world, robots would eliminate tedious tasks from a grower’s day-to-day work. This typically includes registering crop data or monitoring how crops react to their environmental conditions. Growers may accomplish this by taking pictures of their plants every day and by measuring stem diameter, leaf width, stem growth and leaf count.
To growers, these tasks are mundane yet “easy” to accomplish. Having a robot complete these repetitive tasks for them would make their jobs more enjoyable and streamlined. So, why isn’t robotics used in every CEA operation? According to Shreyas Kousik, Ph.D., a mechanical engineering professor at Georgia Tech, it’s not that simple. “It’s not easy for robots to handle the uncertain world that humans have adapted to,” he said.
A Robot from Georgia Tech Working in a USDA Facility in Charleston | Photo: Georgia Tech
CEA Poses Challenges for Robotics
CEA is filled with contact-rich tasks, which robots tend to struggle with. Humans have dexterity and can easily tell when they’re applying the right amount of force to complete a physical task, which isn’t the case for robots. Take picking a strawberry off a plant, for example. While most humans can easily remove a strawberry from its stem, this task proves to be difficult for robots.
“Humans know how to gently hold a strawberry, twist where it’s attached to a plant and use enough force to remove it,” Dr. Kousik said. “This is a combination of using low-force motions to touch the fruit and high-force motions to either push through foliage or pull the fruit off the plant. It’s really challenging [for robots] do these types of contact-rich interactions, because even the [most gentle] robot hands don’t have the same level of nerve or tactile sensation that a human does.”
To Dr. Kousik, this calls the term “unskilled labor” into question. “Unskilled labor seems easy until you try to automate it,” he said.
Could Robotics Lead to More Jobs?
It’s a common perception that, by using robotics in CEA, less jobs will be available in the industry. But Dr. Kousik believes that jobs won’t be limited or reduced – work allocation will simply change.
“Right now, a grower has to work in their facility every day for several hours,” he said. “That means the total number of indoor facilities that a grower can work in is limited. If part of that is automated, then that same grower could potentially work in many different facilities. So, the number of jobs hasn’t really reduced, but the work allocation has changed.”
The Benefits of Robotics in CEA
While robots struggle to complete tasks that are easy for humans, they can easily complete tasks that humans find difficult. One of these tasks includes taking pictures of plants to monitor growth. While it may take hours for a human to take photos of plants in a facility, a robot can take hundreds of photos in half the time.
“Robots are really making an impact in CEA by taking photos of plants,” Dr. Kousik said. “A human would get tired of standing over every single plant to take a picture. On top of that, the reproducibility of taking the same photo from the same location of a growing plant is just intractable for a human to do.”
The Future of Robotics in CEA
There’s a place for both humans and robots in the CEA industry. As technology advances and robots become smarter and more precise, they could streamline the daily tasks some growers dread. According to Dr. Kousik, the “perfect world” where robots can perfect these tasks might not be too far off. This is especially true when it comes to harvesting strawberries and pruning tomato plants.
“My understanding is that people have actively bred plants like strawberries to present the fruit in a way that’s more harvestable,” he said. “Not only does this make growers’ lives easier, but it also makes it more feasible for a robot to harvest a whole crop. Similarly, there have been efforts over the last three decades to build reliable pruning robots for tomatoes. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re getting very close.”