Scientists at Canterbury and Lincoln universities are working together to develop the intelligent vision-based pruning system.
With almost $3 million in funding from the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, the team will spend the next four years on the project, using artificial intelligence (AI) to "recognise plant features and synchronise multiple cameras and high-speed robot arm pruners" to prune grape vines.
It is estimated to provide savings of $27.5m each year to the New Zealand wine industry through increased productivity and reduced yield losses. The system would be manufactured in New Zealand and was forecast to earn New Zealand exporters over $200 million within 10 years of entry into the market.
"Such a fast vision-based pruning system is only possible using recently developed camera technology with efficient cutting edge computer vision-based tracking and AI algorithms," Dr Richard Green says.
"We are leading the world with fast accurate colour 3D depth maps of vines, light robot cutting arms and the AI to coordinate this moving at walking speed."
The robot could maintain a higher quality by pruning consistently and accurately while recognising disease and age of vines, Dr Green said.
The industry would also be able to guarantee pruning within the very brief seasonal window each year.
The technology could also be applied to general harvesting and pruning in the wider agriculture industry, he said.
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