Arno van Lankveld, who grew up on an asparagus farm and who is the manager and large shareholder of AvL Motion from Westerbeek, the Netherlands, knows the needs of this sector like no other. His company developed a robot to harvest asparagus. This innovation will be ready to start for the new asparagus season in April.
Harvesting asparagus is now still manual labour. This has to be done quickly and carefully. For growers it’s becoming more and more difficult to find harvesting workers, Arno knows from experience. “My parents have an asparagus company. The problems regarding workers in this sector have only become worse in recent years. Eastern European harvesters stay away because the economy in their own countries is improving. You can hardly find anyone willing to harvest in the Netherlands.”
Compact and quick
For years, Arno had the idea to build an autonomous harvest robot. Development took place in the past year. AvL Motion tested the robot for weather resistance and subjected it to a durability test. “The machine harvests 16 asparagus per linear metre, and the machine can harvest 15 hectares per day. This capacity is 21 times higher than conventional harvesting. Because asparagus plots are fractured due to the relatively high price of land, the machine was built compactly. When transporting it between the various plots, it can fit on a trailer, so that people can quickly switch plots.”
Guaranteed quality
The harvest modules developed and patented by AvL Motion carefully lift the asparagus from their bed, so they aren’t damaged and barely any sand comes up. Loading and unloading happens quickly. The bed remains homogeneous and doesn’t have to recover after each harvest. Large caterpillar tracks ensure pressure on the soil remains limited. “That way, we prevent condensing of the soil, which wouldn’t be good for the production. A qualitative harvest came first during development.”
Siemens supplies brain
Based on sensory techniques, the robot can drive and harvest completely autonomously. When it reaches the end of the row, it prepares itself to be turned. Using a radiographic remote control it can be moved to the next row. The brain of the controls is a SIMATIC S7-1500 system. “We chose Siemens because this technology is reliable and available globally. Our machine should become operational across the globe. Replacement parts and service should be readily available. Siemens can guarantee this. The technology functions as it should, and it’s accurate up to a millisecond. We can approach the machine from a distance to find any failures or to fix these.”
Simulation
A test situation was set up in AvL Motion’s warehouse, to mimic the asparagus harvest. This way, they could continue developing the machine throughout the winter. The gathering capacity is increased to 500 kilograms of asparagus. An option is added so that the film can be replaced on the same bed, instead of in the neighbouring bed. Because of this, the machine can skip two, four or six beds at the end of the field and work the field in a spiral. It doesn’t have to be turned at the end of the row, which results in time gained. “Early in April 2019 our robot will be completely ready to start in the asparagus fields, which will lead to the start of the production series as of mid-July.”
Source: Siemens