Robot to insert roses

1994/06/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Nekazaritza

The incorporation of roses is an interesting work of gardening, but fewer and fewer injectors. With the aim of solving the problem, the European project “Rosalie” has been launched, which aims to get a robot to insert roses.

In principle the insertion seems a simple operation. It consists of cutting the plant and placing inside the eye of the new variety. But the cut should be in T, not too deep or too shallow. The eye also has to stick to its size, just a little.

All these operations are taken by the integrator in a visual and simple way, but they are excessively complicated tasks to make the machines and have devised a new integration system for the robot.

The first prototype, which works since the summer of 1992, takes forty seconds to take place. However, the French house Pellenc & Motte, with the help of Universal Plants, has prepared an autonomous version of the robot. It has three wheels and looks like the tractor, but does not need guidance. On the one hand are the sinks with eyes and on the other hand the artificial vision and the mechanical arm. The machine takes the stack and fixes it and sticks to the plant.

The mechanical and computer architecture of the robot has been simplified to the maximum, being the computer part fully automated within two years.

It is estimated that every year there are between 150 and 200 million grafts of roses in the world, being the ideal time for this from mid-April to mid-June. In addition, the addition to rose production represents 40% of the costs.

In the opinion of Pellenc & Motte, it will also serve to introduce most fruit trees after having made some adaptations to the robot.