Dragonbot

A team of researchers from the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), part of the Agricultural Robotics Laboratory, has coordinated the development of DRAGONBOT, a new intelligent robot capable of harvesting pitayas (dragon fruit) autonomously, selectively, and without damaging the fruit.

The robot is an autonomous vehicle equipped with computer vision systems that can locate the fruit and determine its ripeness, so that only those at optimal ripeness are harvested.

'This robot is the first of its kind in the dragon fruit sector, to our knowledge, designed for the automated harvesting of this fruit, the cultivation of which has grown considerably in recent years in the Mediterranean, mainly due to its hardiness – as it is a cactus – and, above all, its high profitability, as it commands a very high price and consumer demand for it is constantly rising," highlights Francisco Rovira, director of the Agricultural Robotics Laboratory and a researcher on the project.

The Research Institute for Automatics and Industrial Informatics (ai2) at the UPV is also involved in the development; it has designed the handling system mounted on the collaborative robotic arm, as well as the programming for harvesting and depositing pitayas without damaging the fruit.

"Dragonbot incorporates an autonomous platform with four-wheel drive, two-wheel steering, independent suspension, a robotic arm, a gripper and two tools for cutting the fruit, consisting of a vibrating blade and a pair of pneumatic scissors. Furthermore, we have designed flexible pneumatic fingers to handle the fruit without damaging it," explains Carlos Blanes, a researcher at the UPV's ai2 Institute.

In field trials, more than 75 per cent of the ripe fruit was successfully harvested, and less than 12 per cent was damaged. "These results confirm the viability of our robot for the autonomous harvesting not only of dragon fruit, but also of other delicate fruits," concludes Coral Ortiz, the project coordinator.

The following companies have participated in the development of Dragonbot: GreenVision, responsible for estimating fruit ripeness; Inderen, which provided an agrivoltaic test environment; and Nutai, an expert partner in computer vision that tackled the challenge of selecting and locating the fruit's cutting point.

The project has received funding from the Strategic Cooperation Projects programme of the Valencian Regional Government, co-financed by ERDF funds. Furthermore, it was selected this week as a success story in collaborative innovation at Innova Connect, an event organised jointly by the Directorate-General for European Funds and Ivace+i Innovation to highlight the impact of European funding on technological development in the Valencian Community.