Incredipack - robotic packing for delicate produce II

包装新鲜农产品对商业番茄种植者和包装操作来说是一个持续的挑战。卫生是一个主要问题。除了新冠肺炎带来的新挑战外，还有几种由人类携带的病毒和疾病，如果不被发现，可能会导致产品变质，甚至向消费者传播疾病。在如此多的人工干预下保持包装环境的清洁(达到食品卫生标准)是该行业持续且主要关注的问题。由于新冠肺炎和英国退出欧盟，大多数市场对劳动力流动性的担忧日益加剧，这导致了不可预测的劳动力可用性和增加的包装成本。西尔姆已经获得英国政府的资金来应对这些挑战，并目标是带来一种新的机器人解决方案，使包装能够实现自动化。机器人将在他们的收获系统中重复使用和扩展西尔姆开发的核心技术，该系统使用了最先进的3D视觉人工智能技术。这项技术可以让机器人在挑选和包装货物到集装箱之前，学习并“看到”货物的包装。这是一个令人兴奋的项目，有望在两年内将机器人送到英国和欧洲的包装地点。预计这项技术可以进一步开发，以提高其他市场的生产率和食品安全标准，并在不适合人类居住的环境中应用。

Packing fresh produce is a continued challenge for commercial tomato growers and packing operations alike.Hygiene is a major concern. In addition to the new challenges brought about by Covid-19 there are several viruses and diseases which are carried by humans which if undetected, can lead to spoiling of product and even disease transmission to consumers. Keeping the packing environments clean (to food hygiene standards) with so much human intervention is an ongoing and major concern for the industry.Due to Covid-19 and the UKs exit from the EU there are increasing labour mobility concerns in most markets, which are leading to unpredictable labour availability and increased packing costs.Xihelm have secured IUK funds to combat these challenges and aim to bring a new robotic solution to enable packing to be automated.The robots will re-use & extend core technology developed by Xihelm in their harvesting systems, which uses state-of-the-art 3D vision Artificial Intelligence technology. This technology allows the robots to learn and "see" the goods to pack, before picking and packing them in containers.It is an exciting project which is expected to deliver robots to packing locations in the UK and Europe in 2 years' time.It is expected the technology can be further developed to improve productivity and food safety standards in other markets and have application in environments which are inhospitable to humans.