Milhim has been working on the project since February 2024 and has assembled an eager team of engineering students who have embraced the challenge of creating a potential game-changing method of harvest fruit.<\/p>\n
One of the student leaders on the project is Juan Espinoza Jr., a mechanical engineering graduate student who knows first-hand how revolutionary a mechanical harvesting machine could be.<\/p>\n
Espinoza spent several summers working in the almond orchards, grape fields and rose nurseries in the Kern County area. Although he has never harvested oranges he knows the work can be back-breaking.<\/p>\n
Citrus harvesters carry sacks across their bodies and use them to collect the fruit they pick. When full, the sacks can weight up to 90 pounds.<\/p>\n
The workers use 15-foot ladders to reach fruit that is beyond their reach as they maneuver their ladders through the sometimes uneven ground in the groves.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a demanding task that can also be dangerous,\u201d Espinoza said. \u201cAnd it takes a lot of skill.\u201d<\/p>\n
Espinoza admits he had qualms about the project when he first joined the team. He worried about taking jobs away from workers.<\/p>\n
But he also realized these labor-intensive jobs are punishing on a workers body.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy hope is that because most automation efforts don\u2019t happen overnight, it will give people the time to retrain themselves to do other types of work,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are the most physically demanding jobs that sometimes come with the least compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The other factor at play in the development of any robotic harvesting tool is the realization that the supply of farm labor is shrinking, whether through increased federal enforcement of undocumented workers or natural attrition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think something needs to be done to look at the longterm solution for labor issues,\u201d Espinoza said. \u201cAnd I hope that projects like ours is where things are headed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Milhim sees definite signs that he and his students are potentially on to something big, despite being at least two years away from commercial production.<\/p>\n
Still, the project, that as yet does not have an official name, has received interest and funding.<\/p>\n
The F3 Coalition<\/a>, a $65 million federal grant initiative aimed at transforming Central Valley agriculture through climate-smart technology, has provided more than $100,000 in funding to the project, Milhim said.<\/p>\n Citrus growers have also taken notice. During a recent field trial at Fresno State\u2019s farm, a representative from the Wonderful Company, a giant in the agriculture industry, visited the campus to get a live look at the device.<\/p>\n The Wonderful Company<\/a> is the largest grower, shipper, and packer of fresh citrus in California and the United States.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are very interested in this technology and what it may be capable of doing,\u201d said Ramesh Muppuru, senior manager business relationships, at the Wonderful Company. \u201cThis could be a game changer.\u201d<\/p>\n As Muppuru and others watched, several Fresno State students hovered around a robotic platform that served as the base of the robotic citrus picker.<\/p>\n The device uses a camera to capture an image of the tree that it uses to determine where the fruit is, and the degree of ripeness. More than 2,000 images of ripe citrus fruit were uploaded to the robot\u2019s database to help it figure out what to select.<\/p>\n Once it finds a good piece of fruit, it sends commands to the arm to make precise cuts and then deposits it into a bin.<\/p>\n Each of the students present that day, Andrei Catalan, Nicole Oliva, Alexander Ellis, Daniel Yang and Brendan Chinnock, is responsible for a specific task of the robotic arm.<\/p>\n Chinnock said that while agriculture wasn\u2019t \u201csuper big\u201d on his radar for a career, this project may have changed his mind.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a lot more challenges to something like this and a lot more opportunities to figure out new solutions,\u201d he said. \u201cPlus we are getting into some real unchartered territory.\u201d<\/p>\n Within the next two years, Milhim and his team will work on adding more robotic arms to the device, increase its picking speed and making it autonomous.<\/p>\n \u201cIt could have maybe five, six, or maybe even eight arms, all working at once harvesting fruit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As for a possible name, one of the students joked that it may end up resembling \u201cDoctor Octopus\u201d a supervillain in the Spider Man comic books that had several robotic tenticles.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can call it Doc Ochs,\u201d said Yang.<\/p>\n
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