Ricardo Sanfelice, director of CITRIS Aviation and chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC Santa Cruz, and Stefano Carpin, a CITRIS-affiliated researcher and professor of computer science and engineering at UC Merced, are collaborating with colleagues at Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico to address the challenges of harvesting berries.
Supported by funding from the University of California’s Alianza MX initiative, the team plans to pursue technological solutions that will make berry cultivation and harvesting processes safer and less labor intensive for workers. Mindful of a workforce shortage and high product demand within the agricultural industry, they will test a sensing system powered by machine learning and computer vision to monitor berry health and maturity in greenhouses. The group will also explore adapting robotics to delicately harvest berries, routing robots through orchards with maximal efficiency and prolonging berry quality for shipment.
“Berry harvesting involves a lot of very interesting fundamental robotics control problems, which we have researched in different contexts and we can apply to this very important problem,” said Sanfelice. “Then there’s also the societal impact aspect, which I’m very interested in: How do we actually support the workforce in order to create technological solutions that are not only efficient, but also ethical?”’
The team will collaborate with agricultural industry partners throughout the project to ensure they are aligned with the needs of growers and workers.