Dr Rory Flemmer is the New Zealand Engineering Innovator of the Year
NZ: Major award for Massey engineer

The award was presented at the New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards Dinner at the Duxton Hotel in Wellington last night. The evening is the premier awards for engineering professionals in New Zealand.
Dr Flemmer has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Natal in South Africa and spent 18 years in the United States producing robotic and artificial vision systems for Fortune 500 companies such as Sony, Bausch, Union Carbide and Siemens. In 2005 he took up a position as senior lecturer in the School of Engineering and Advanced Technology, at the Manawatu campus.

His current research is around automated fruit packing and picking, assessing orchards using geosynchronous satellites, artificial intelligence, artificial vision, sound location for human hearing and development of a novel wheel chair.

Dr Flemmer holds seven full patents and a further four provisions patents for his innovations. His automated fruit packaging system overcomes long-term problems, such as ensuring that each piece of fruit is correctly oriented prior to packing and, in the case of apples, that the reddest side is uppermost. He has also been exploring how to automate the fruit packing process and has several machines, including robots under development.

The kiwifruit-picking robot aims to solve the kiwifruit industry’s perennial crisis: not enough pickers. The automated picker can pick fruit without damaging it. The key to their design is an artificial vision system that enables the robot to select and pick 14,000 kiwifruit an hour.

His automated kiwifruit packing system will help buyers receive exactly the grade of kiwifruit they require at the right stage of ripeness. The system was been developed with kiwifruit marketing organisation Zespri, after recognition that a lack of labour to pick and pack kiwifruit was impacting upon the industry.

Head of the School of Engineering and Advanced Technology Professor Don Cleland says Dr Flemmer’s award is well deserved. “We strive to work closely with industry to solve the problems it faces,” he says. “Rory embodies this goal in his work and his innovative research has led to some real solutions.”


Source: massey.ac.nz

Publication date: 11/26/2009

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