Can Automated Vehicles Improve Efficiency?

After four years, Dr. Marcel Bergerman of Carnegie Mellon University discussed the results of a USDA-Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) grant for Comprehensive Automation of Specialty Crops at the Mid-Atlantic Fruit and Vegetable Convention in Hershey, PA. The USDA-SCRI project is dedicated to developing automotive technologies for the tree fruit industry, with Carnegie Mellon University as the lead research university and with contributions from Penn State University.

Through research, the autonomous orchard vehicles were able to increase efficiency in the orchard through mowing, pruning platforms, tree maintenance, etc. As of now, the autonomous orchard vehicles are still in prototypes.

To watch the prototypes in action, visit the Comprehensive Automation of Specialty Crops YouTube page at www.youtube.com/user/TheCASCrop. For more information, click here to read a story from the May 2012 issue of American/Western Fruit Grower magazine.