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ter ten years during which Aerobotics, one of South Africa's most successful tech startups, became known as a pioneer in AI and precision farming, today their tools are used by some 400 companies.
Many leading fruit companies are among their clients: the biggest share of their business comes from the USA, followed by Australia, South Africa, and Spain.
"Growers around the world use our technology in their pursuit of premium fruit," says James Paterson, founder and CEO. "A decade of staying the course has sharpened our focus," he remarks, "and has shown that the most value resides in TrueFruit, their platform for precise yield measurement and estimation."
A different growth model is possible for each farm
"We recently launched our grading product, looking at the external appearance of the fruit to estimate the grade or external quality. We've built some additional tools for calculating volumes on the farm and inputting the volume per week, which then can roll up into a complete overview of your fruits and the timing."
TrueFruit is an AI vision technology that identifies each fruit, calculates its size, analyses its external colour and blemishes, and then forecasts size through to the end of the season, giving users an estimated harvest size structure.
"One of the challenges we face compared to a packline in the packhouse, where all the fruit is already picked, and the lighting's good, is that our solutions have to handle partial occlusion by leaves, and when the fruit is small and green. Our models take that into account, work out the shape of the fruit and calculate the size accurately, even though it's partially covered."
TrueFruit yield estimation is standardised, accurate, and ten times faster than traditional methods
The data collected in this way never wavers from the same operating procedure, therefore, it can be compared to previous seasons or intra-company benchmarks. It's fully accurate, which is why leading fruit groups in the world are using it, he says.
"TrueFruit is roughly ten times faster than traditional methods, which means you can collect a much bigger sample size. We've got really good forecasting models, so it's definitely a big aid in making important sales decisions."
Aerobotics primarily services the citrus, table grapes, and apple industry, but they provide solutions for many others, like kiwifruit, pomegranates, avocados, blueberries, and cherries.
An Aerobotics TrueFruit customer starts with their own growth curve based on historic data, but this is refined as more data is collected. "We can have a different growth model for each farm. As you collect data on a farm, it localises it to that farm. The prediction models improve every year as you use them."
For more information:
James Paterson
Aerobotics
https://www.aerobotics.com/