Flower Interaction Subsystem for a Precision Pollination Robot
This addresses the need for cost-effective and stable pollination methods in environments unsuitable for bees, such as greenhouses or space, though it is incremental as it builds on existing robotic systems.
The paper tackles the problem of autonomous robotic pollination by developing a fully autonomous robot capable of precisely pollinating individual small flowers, achieving a 93.1% detection accuracy and a 76.9% pollination success rate in tests with artificial flowers.
Robotic pollinators not only can aid farmers by providing more cost effective and stable methods for pollinating plants but also benefit crop production in environments not suitable for bees such as greenhouses, growth chambers, and in outer space. Robotic pollination requires a high degree of precision and autonomy but few systems have addressed both of these aspects in practice. In this paper, a fully autonomous robot is presented, capable of precise pollination of individual small flowers. Experimental results show that the proposed system is able to achieve a 93.1% detection accuracy and a 76.9% 'pollination' success rate tested with high-fidelity artificial flowers.