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Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute

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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 first-generation system was developed at CMU, capable of automatically lifting and conveying plants from the ground 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 #5 (approximate equivalence to gallons). The system is designed to handle 45,000 containers per 8-hour day with one to two operators. Testing and a new design are currently underway, with as-built designs and experimental results for the first prototype's performance presented.

Notes

Associated Center(s) / Consortia: National Robotics Engineering Center

Associated Project(s): Automated Field-Container Handling System and Container Handling

Number of pages: 6

Text Reference

Hagen Schempf, , Robert Fuchs, and C. Gasior, "Automated container-handling system for container production nurseries," IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA '01), April, 2001, pp. 755 - 760.

BibTeX Reference

@inproceedings{Schempf_2001_4526,
   author = "Hagen Schempf and and Robert Fuchs and C. Gasior",
   title = "Automated container-handling system for container production nurseries",
   booktitle = "IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA '01)",
   pages = "755 - 760",
   month = "April",
   year = "2001",
   volume = "1",
}

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