Junior: a robot for outdoor container nurseries

Abstract

Production of nursery crops in the US is accomplished in container- and field-growing conditions, with propagation and seedling-rearing carried out in greenhouses. The USDA, NASA and the ANLA have collaborated to develop an automated in-field container-handling system for reducing dependence on foreign labor while also increasing productivity. A prototype system was developed at CMU, capable of automatically lifting and conveying plants from. the ground (in a variety of regular patterns) onto trailers, and vice-versa. The system is capable of handling a vast array of container-designs from different manufacturers, and spans the size-range from #1 to #3 (approximate equivalence to US gallons). The system is designed to handle 35, 000 containers per 8-hour day with one to two operators. Field-trials currently underway has shown the system to reliably handle 29, 000 #1 containers per 8-hour day with less than a 3% failure-rate. Testing in various growth-zones and surfaces is underway, with commercialization efforts in Europe/US.