Grant for the creation of a robot
The staff of the Research Institute of Robotics and Control Systems of BSTU named after V.G. Shukhov won a grant from the Russian Science Foundation in the amount of 21 million rubles to create a robot for harvesting. Research Institute of Robotics and Control Systems under the leadership of Professor Larisa Aleksandrovna Rybak has been researching and developing new robotic systems for various applications in mechanical engineering, agriculture, medicine, transport, space systems and other fields for many years. The project team includes leading scientists of the university, and over 60% of the team are young scientists under 39 years old. They have three laboratories at their disposal, one of which is international.
Scientific projects and developments are carried out within the framework of projects of the Russian Science Foundation, which allocates funding jointly with the region for the purchase of equipment, components, and software. One of the priority areas supported by the government of the Belgorod Region is digitalization in the agro-industrial complex. The Belgorod region is one of the leading agricultural regions of the country, where significant attention is paid to horticulture as one of the key areas of agriculture. And an important task to improve the efficiency of work in this area is the use of automation tools, robotization, the use of fully automated systems for harvesting fruit and vegetable crops.
There are currently several robotic fruit-picking systems, but most of them pluck fruit in a way that damages either the fruit, or the tree itself, or both. In this regard, the actual problem is the development of new automated systems for agriculture, which will allow harvesting without harm to the fruit itself, to the tree, and at the same time to minimize the cost of manual labor. “As a result of our project, it is planned to create a new autonomous agricultural robot for picking fruits, which can move across unpaved terrain. It consists of a fruit picking base, a parallel robot for moving the output link in several directions, a flexible link for carrying and storing fruit in a storage at the base, and a telescopic link that has a specially designed fruit picking device. For some types of fruit, it is the picking that is unacceptable, therefore, in addition, cutting elements will be provided in the design of the special grip, which will allow you to cut the fruit without damaging them and the branch itself. In addition, the robot will be equipped with a vision system that will allow it to recognize fruits in the hard-to-reach environment of tree crowns, in low light conditions,” said Elena Gaponenko, Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering Technology, Senior Researcher at the Research Institute of Robotics and Control Systems.
The grant is for three years. The results of the project will help improve the quality of work, labor productivity in the transportation, assembly and storage of fruits. The developed agricultural robot with enhanced characteristics of maneuverability, compactness and cross-country ability will be widely used in farms, nurseries in the region that are engaged in gardening, especially in conditions when the whole country is working on import substitution.