There are several kinds of blueberry picking machines. There are air-blast pickers that blow the berries off the plant. There are ones with wheels of vibrating sticks. There are ones that get a comb around the plant and pull.
Some berries get damaged, yes. Some leaves and twigs get through. They're separated out by a very fast vision-based sorting machine before packing.[1] That's been standard technology for a decade or so.
Apple picking is still in the R&D stage.[2] Cost needs to come down to $0.02 per pick.
It's great to see startups in this area, but the thing has to work. There are too many failed ag robotics startups.[3] Ask "could you pressure-wash this thing"? If there are wires, electronics, and bearings exposed, it's still experimental.
Yes, powerwashing would be wanted. That's an IP69K, not too hard to hit with some basic mechanical protections.
Unless you need delicate sensors which need direct contact to samples to work.
Maybe it's not a complete necessity, but generally it's gonna be mixed in with big farm equipment that is power washed. The more you have to "coddle" the equipment the less cost effective it'll be for farmers.
Farm workers generally know how to wash themselves. Still I'd wage good money farm hands have used power washers on each other. Probably work well to clean off work coveralls!
Strictly it needn't be if it offers an even better solution, but, realistically, what startup trying to introduce a new technology (that isn't cleaning technology) has time to also develop a novel way to clean things? It is such an unlikely scenario that it isn't worth considering.
Some berries get damaged, yes. Some leaves and twigs get through. They're separated out by a very fast vision-based sorting machine before packing.[1] That's been standard technology for a decade or so.
Apple picking is still in the R&D stage.[2] Cost needs to come down to $0.02 per pick.
It's great to see startups in this area, but the thing has to work. There are too many failed ag robotics startups.[3] Ask "could you pressure-wash this thing"? If there are wires, electronics, and bearings exposed, it's still experimental.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ica3FLAvPas
[2] https://goodfruit.com/lots-of-bots-video
[3] https://www.futurefarming.com/tech-in-focus/field-robots/cha...