Automatic cotton harvesting could soon be within reach in light of a new robot that plucks one cotton boll at a time.
- The new ‘end-effector’, developed by Mississippi State University (MSU) scientists, is being seen as a potential game-changer for agriculture.
- The research team recently published about the project in the journal Smart Agricultural Technology. The project was sponsored by Cotton, Inc.
- Experts from the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station and collaborating entities hope to better feed and clothe the world by combating challenges such as lack of qualified machine operators, soil detriment caused by enormous harvesters and climate change.
THE TECHNOLOGY: Inspired by the distinctive way a lizard's tongue reaches for its prey, the picking device plucks one cotton boll at a time—rather than all at once like machines—making harvesting possible earlier and more often when seed cotton is at peak quality.
- According to the device’s designer Hussein Gharakhani, the cotton plant presents unique challenges to an AI-based camera system because bolls can be oriented in different directions, and seed cotton is not solid and contiguous like an apple. Gharakhani is an ag and bio engineering assistant professor at MSU.
- The end-effector, which took about a year to develop, works with the camera-based perception system to identify and retrieve the fibre from the boll.
- Xin Zhang, another investigator and department assistant professor, is focused on integrating the end-effector with a commercial, six-degree-of-freedom robotic arm and a 4-wheel drive robotic platform—the "Husky" made by Clearpath Robotics—which operates with a GPS navigation unit and a perception module.
UP AHEAD: For the last few years, the researchers have been building and testing these systems individually, and over the next year, they will focus on integration and navigation with the goal of building a completely autonomous harvester that can work across unpredictable and uneven terrain.
- This technology has a long way to go to be commercially viable. However, robotic systems harvesting research will continue to advance toward sustainable solutions to problems facing agriculture.
THE CONTEXT: As the population grows and more people find work in urban areas, fewer people are available for or even interested in farm labour, and it's often difficult to find people who are qualified to operate large agricultural machinery.
- In addition, economic and environmental effects of conventional harvesters are incentivizing robotic solutions. Today's six-row, round module harvesters, which gather most of the cotton in the US and weigh about 30 tonnes, can compact soil to the extent fertiliser and water become less effective in the wheel tracks, leading to possible yield reductions. Also, since these machines harvest at season's end, fibre from early-blooming bolls undoubtedly can be lost.
WHAT THEY SAID:
The systems technology we're designing today will give tomorrow's cotton farmers more ecologically and economically sustainable options for harvesting.
— Alex Thomasson
Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering
Mississippi State University
