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Kitchener tech companies are developing much-needed solutions for farmers to grow and harvest crops faster and more efficiently.
Mycionics Inc., Finite Robotics and Upright Robotics have developed automated robots that will help farmers grow, harvest and maintain their produce at an affordable price.
The founders of the three companies have experience in the agriculture industry and say they were approached by someone to find a solution to a labour problem.
Mushroom picking
At Mycionics Inc., they have developed an automated robotic system to make the repetitive job of mushroom harvesting less intensive.
CEO Stefan Glibetic says because of how fast mushrooms grow a worker often needs to harvest about 3,000 mushrooms an hour for eight to 10 hours a day, which can be exhausting work.
The mushroom picking robot uses metal fingers to pluck the fungi carefully, and it can identify which mushroom it is harvesting.
“Artificial intelligence, as well as machine vision techniques, process the image data that we’re extracting or capturing of the bed to identify each individual mushroom,” said Glibetic.
“And then the parameters of those mushrooms, the exact size, the shape, the orientation, calculate where to place our fingers, and then also how to remove the mushroom.”
Glibetic says the idea of automated robots picking mushrooms has been around for 40 years.
He was first made aware of it as an undergraduate student at University of Western Ontario when a mushroom farmer approached the school in 2013 and presented the problem to the engineering faculty.
Glibetic remained curious to find a solution to use modern robotics to harvest mushrooms.
WATCH | Mycionics Inc.’s mushroom harvester in action:
Kitchener company develops robotic mushroom harvesting system
Mushrooms grow 24 hours a day and 365 days of the year and harvesting them can involve intensive manual labour. A Kitchener, Ont., robotics company aims to make it easier. Mycionics Incorporated CEO Stefan Glibetic explains how the robots can pick mushrooms at the right time.Apple thinning
The end goal for Finite Robotics is to grow larger, tastier and cheaper apples. It has developed a robot for the fruit thinning phase of the apple growing season, to replace the use of chemicals.
Company president and apple grower Matt Stevens says they’re trying to make fresh fruit more affordable for Canadians.
“Roughly half the cost of an apple is in manual labour,” said Stevens.
“So what we really want to do is make it where Canadian fruit growers can still grow the crops or even larger crops than they’re currently growing, but with less labour input. Because that’s the way we get more affordable fruit and higher grower profitability.”
Stevens says they offer the apple grower at least two employees and the robotic unit to perform the job of fruit thinning.
WATCH | Finite Robotics machines thin the apple orchard for better growth:
How Kitchener’s Finite Robotics aims to help grow larger apples
A crunchy, tasty and low-cost apple – that’s the end game for a Kitchener ag-bot company. Finite Robotics has developed an orchard robot that helps during the fruit thinning process of the growing season. Their machine removes extra apples to give the remaining ones room to grow. Company president and apple grower Matt Stevens explains how it works.The Maize Runner
Jana Tian and Sam Dugan, the co-founders of Upside Robotics, were tasked to find a solution for corn producers to avoid the excess use of fertilizer on their crops.
That solution is called the Maize Runner. The small, four-wheeled unit fits in between rows of corn and applies the right amount of fertilizer for what the producer needs without wasting any.
“With skyrocketing fertilizer rates, it’s more important now than ever before to grow more with less,” said Dugan.
“Our system, instead of taking all your fertilizer and dumping it in the field at the beginning of the season … we go in and apply a little bit every week exactly as the plant needs it.”
Dugan says once corn grows to a certain height machines can’t get in between the rows without trampling it, but the Maize Runner is small enough to navigate the crop.
Upside Robotics says it will have at least 80 of the Maize Runners and 40 base stations on farmers’ fields this season.
WATCH | Upside Robotics Maize Runner saves corn producers fertilizer:
Meet the Maize Runner: a robot that fertilizes corn fields
The Maize Runner is an autonomous robot created by Kitchener’s Upside Robotics that applies the exact amount of fertilizer needed on a corn crop without waste. CEO Jana Tian and CTO Sam Dugan, co-founders of Upside Robotics, explain how their robots work.