Brisbane robot builder ready to begin trials in fruit and veg packing houses

A team of robot builders have developed machines smart enough to carefully pick and pack fruit as delicately as a human hand.

LYRO Robotics co-founder Jurgen Leitner adjusting a robot capable of picking and packing avocados.

ROBOTS are not new on the agricultural scene, but access to the technology has largely been restricted to the biggest – and wealthiest – players.

But a new Brisbane start-up is hoping to change that with their “smart” machines they are hoping to trial in fruit and vegetable pack houses across the nation.

Jurgen Leitner, Nicole Robinson and Norton Kelly-Boxall started LYRO Robotics in Brisbane 10 months ago to build robots whose distinguishing characteristic is their human-like fine motor skills.

“Understanding what an item is and how to pick it up, it sounds very simple for us, but there are a lot of muscles and problems to overcome before we master it,” Dr Leitner said.

The Austrian-born research fellow is the outgoing head of The ARC Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision’s manipulation and vision research project, which he left after he, Dr Robinson and Mr Kelly-Boxall were part of the winning team at the 2017 Amazon Robotics Challenge in Japan.

LYRO’s robots can be tailored to the specific needs of an agricultural business. A trial machine has been built for a Queensland mango packing shed that can detect the amount of blush on each piece of fruit. The greater the blush on a mango, the more a grower can get for the fruit.

“We’ve had a lot of interest from large-scale farmers,” Dr Leitner said. “COVID-19 has pushed the problems of labour even harder so tech-savvy farmers are looking at how they can integrate new technologies … with a robot you just turn it on and when you don’t need it you turn it off.”

The trials will initially be free and conducted over the next six months.

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