None of today's robots have been able to fully replace humans in the peach cultivation industry due to peach orchards' unstructured environments, which includes unpredictable weather, uneven terrain, and trees' different shapes and sizes, said Hu. The important process, usually done by hand, exposes more interior surface areas of the fruit trees to sunlight. The robot is also trained to assist with pruning, the selective removal of branches prior to the spring growing season, which typically occurs from mid-May to early August. Once at a peach tree, the robot's embedded 3D camera finds the peachlet and grabs the fruit with a claw-like device at the end of its robotic arm. 'What you want to do is have relatively few peaches, but you want the ones that remain to be nice and big and sweet вЂ“ ones you can actually sell.' 'If you just let all the peaches grow to maturity, then what you'll end up getting is a tree of really small peaches,' Hu said. Thinning allows for bigger and better peaches to grow, according to Ai-Ping Hu, a GTRI senior research engineer who is leading the robot design project. Removing the peachlets, a process often referred to as thinning, is critical to the output of a given tree. Researchers trained the system to recognize undeveloped peaches known as peachlets. The engineers' efforts are focused mainly on the tasks of thinning and pruning, rather than harvesting. The LIDAR system determines distances by targeting an object with a laser and measuring the laser beam's return time, while the GPS technology measures locations as specific as a fraction of an inch. The Georgia Tech-developed robot uses both LIDAR and GPS to self-navigate through the orchard. 'It's money in the pocket of the growers.' 'This is something that directly affects the yield of the trees,' said Gary McMurray, a GTRI principal research engineer and division chief of GTRI's Intelligent Sustainable Technologies Division in a recent press release. The automated, non-human approach could result in significant cost savings for peach farms in Georgia, according to the researchers. Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) are testing out a new idea on the University of GeorgiaвЂ™s Griffin campus.: Have a robot do all three.ДЄn intelligent robot being developed at The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) uses artificial intelligence and sophisticated navigation to handle the tasks of removing branches, finding good peaches, and removing them from a tree.

For Georgia to produce its over 130 million pounds of peaches ever year, farmers and workers around the orchard are tasked with a set of important responsibilities: pruning, thinning, and picking.

Tb peach