CROPS-Clever Robots for crops (KB-17-001.02-004)

The project CROPS focuses on the development of intelligent systems which can
be used for the production and harvesting of high value crops. CROPS will
develop new sensors, manipulators, grippers and intelligence, for different
applications. In the CROPS project WUR Greenhouse Horticulture focuses on
harvesting of sweet pepper. Especially from the development of intelligence it is
expected that it will solve the problem of using robots in unstructured
environments.
The proposed project is part of an FP7-EU-project and will be carried out in
cooperation with among others the Technical University of Munich, Ben-Gurion
University, Israel and Jentjens Machinetechniek B.V. For the Dutch part an
advisory group of sweet pepper growers has been formed.
The total EU-project has a budget of 10M€ and will be performed by 14
partners from 10 countries. The Dutch research budget is € 993.000, with an
own contribution of € 232.000
Greenhouse horticulture is an important economical factor in the Netherlands,
but is threatened by high labour costs and the availability of labour. Robotics is
seen as the solution for the sustainability of greenhouse horticulture. At this
moment there is no harvesting robot available in practice and the cause of this is
searched in the lack of intelligence of the robots developed in (international)
research.
The project will result in a PhD-thesis, several international publications and in a
functional model of a sweet pepper harvesting robot.