
Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’ - Futurebot
http://www.drivesncontrols.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/4938/Fruit-sorting_robot__91will_disrupt_the_industry_92.html
======
Animats
Fruit sorting systems have been in production use for years. They're very
impressive. Vision systems, AI, robotics, and the ability to handle huge
quantities of produce.

Here's a production scale apple sorting and packing system.[1] The part of the
video for "big plant" shows the most automated version.

Here's a system for sorting peas.[2] Each individual pea is inspected using
computer vision. Each individual pea. Anything that doesn't look like a
perfect pea is kicked out by an air jet. Take a look at the speed at which the
system is running, as a wide conveyor belt feeds hundreds of peas per second
through the machine, with the good ones coming out on one conveyor and the
rejects on another. That one machine is doing a job a thousand hand sorters
could not do.

Automated cherry grading.[3] This video has a good explanation of what's going
on, as size, color, stem length, and defects are all checked by a computer
vision system. That system can process over 700Kg/hour of cherries. "We're
enabling our clients to massively reduce their sorting staff."

Tomato sorting machine.[4] This video has slow-motion sections so you can see
the tomatoes being sorted. The machine is far too fast for humans to even see
what it's doing.

There are vision-based sorting machines for almost every kind of produce, and
they're in wide use all over the world. All this automated sorting means that
customers no longer need to examine produce in the supermarket. The rejects
were removed at the plant, and turned into animal feed or something. This
makes services like Amazon Fresh possible.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cprDuf0ASzU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cprDuf0ASzU)
[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyGR6A5MWG0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyGR6A5MWG0)
[3]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3jlq03Gviw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3jlq03Gviw)
[4]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz88nsWL4kw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz88nsWL4kw)

~~~
aidenn0
I think you underestimate the quality of a thousand hand sorters. That machine
may replace on the order of a hundred hand sorters, but I doubt it's 1000.

~~~
Animats
6 metric tons of peas per hour per machine. The machine examines the pea from
all sides while the pea is in free fall. A human would have to pick up each
pea to do a comparable job. A kilogram of peas is about 4000 peas, so 1000
humans would each have to examine 24,000 peas per hour each, or 6 peas per
second, to keep up.

~~~
aidenn0
Okay, 6000 peas per second is more than a thousand people could do. I was
basing my response off your original description of "hundreds of peas per
second" while I know humans can sort at a rate of more than 1 pea per second.

------
julianozen
"Once picked, the fruit can also be sorted by colour so that, for example, red
apples can be separated from green apples."

So it can compare apples and oranges. Thanks I'm done

~~~
FussyZeus
You beat me to that joke. Well played.

------
josu
This is a bit off topic, but this GIF of a carrot harvesting machine never
ceases to amaze me:
[http://i.imgur.com/UkTalyS.gifv](http://i.imgur.com/UkTalyS.gifv)

~~~
thomasahle
But carrots are easier than fruit. If you go to apple or orange plantages,
you'll often see the ground covered in perfectly good fruit, because it's too
expensive to pick it efficiently. 20% doesn't even make it to the shop:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/nadiaarumugam/2012/10/04/un-
says...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/nadiaarumugam/2012/10/04/un-says-europe-
wastes-50-of-fruit-and-vegetables-and-america-isnt-much-better/)

In addition, being able to remove weeds mechanically, rather than chemically,
is a big win for health and environment.

------
birbal
I have some personal experience with applying computer/machine vision
techniques to assessing rice quality. In India, rice quality assessment is a
high value activity as the difference in per unit weight price is dramatic
across different varieties of rice. The longer the grain, as an example, the
pricier it is. Discoloration is also an indicator of bad quality rice. Since
there is such a huge difference in price, there is naturally cheating,
subjectivity and sampling driven errors. We had developed a device that would
objectively and quickly measure the rice quality based on a multitude of
factors. This was not just software because there had to be way to cancel out
any variance due to ambient conditions and it had to be a device that was easy
to maintain in a highly rugged rice factory environment. We did really well
but where we failed was our inability to break through the powerful rice
quality inspectors cartel and even the rice suppliers who were worried about
being "found out". Manual inspection was strangely seen as way of having some
control over the proceedings.

~~~
anonbanker
As an ag/tech startup, I'm very interested in this device. is there a way to
contact you for more information?

~~~
birbal
This was 7 years back my friend. We built software prototype for measuring
dimensions, classifying grain type and measuring color / brokenness. For
hardware we had some initial designs where the objectives were - to easily put
grains on a platform so they are separated from each other, easy cleaning and
lighting uniformity. We had conceived some rotating or vibrating disks for
grain separation. But the mechanical part of the hardware wasn't actually
built. I have moved on. There is nostalgia around that was triggered by this
thread, but nothing more at this point. Sorry to disappoint.

------
rubidium
I toured a commercial apple orchard 10 years ago. They use massive parallel
conveyor system with laser-imaging for quality and gates to sort.

I'd be surprised if this robotic arm+vision system could compete on cost and
through-put.

~~~
Retric
Note this "can distinguish and selectively _pick_ fruit." Right now you either
set up nets, have a machine bulk shake a tree and take what falls, or pay
someone to pick ripe fruit. The conveyor system would then sort the collected
fruit.

This system either replaces human collectors or significantly increases yields
compared to shaking the trees. But, you would likely still need the bulk
sorting at a later stage.

------
amelius
I'm wondering what is so difficult about this task. I mean, all the "good"
fruit looks almost the same, so recognizing it should be simple. Also, there's
plenty of training material.

~~~
sageabilly
Fruit is not a uniform shape and it typically bruises easily so it can be
difficult to design a robotic "hand" to consistently pick up fruit of
irregular shape without bruising.

This article from Gizmodo does a good job of explaining the difficulties
involved: [http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/10/why-is-it-so-hard-for-
robo...](http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/10/why-is-it-so-hard-for-robots-to-
pick-up-fruit/)

~~~
amelius
Looking from those images, I think they are using the wrong kind of hand. A
better hand would simply be a "vacuum cleaner" end, i.e., gripping the fruit
by suction power. If it can't be gripped like that, it is probably not fruit
that needs to be selected.

~~~
masklinn
Suction would bruise anything but the hardiest and greenest apples, same as a
hickey except now it rots all your fruits. Some fruits are already
ridiculously sensible to bruising as it is (pears from the family orchards
bruise if you look at them funny)

------
vegabook
Capital trumps labour, yet again. Talk about a brave new (terrible) world.

How is anybody without amazing talent, IQ, _and_ luck in the birth-location
lottery, supposed to survive?

How are these awful machines helping to advance the wellbeing of humanity? By
destroying livelihoods for a few pennies cheaper bananas to those who can
already afford to pay more?

~~~
sliverstorm
_How are these awful machines helping to advance the wellbeing of humanity?_

Hypothetically, by freeing humanity from hard manual labor and making goods
less costly.

Machines have a long history of advancing the wellbeing of humanity. The fire
bow, wheel, pottery wheel, bicycle, ox cart, lever, ramp, plow... I could go
on and on, from ancient to modern.

The modern textile industry is a much closer advancement, that made clothing
_manyfold_ more affordable and freed countless people from unforgiving
constant manual labor.

~~~
vegabook
That sorting fruit is "hard labour" is actually coincidental. The real skill
is pattern recognition and dextrosity. Skills widely deployed by humans today.
We're now on the cusp of destroying this, another whole class of human
employability. I am not as confident as you that we can simply extrapolate the
past ad infinitum (ie: the "we will adapt and flourish" dogma). It seems to me
we're reaching some inflection points in the trend where real, painful
adjustment will occur. Recall that the 19th century's "innovations" created
vast misery then, and war for 50 years 50 years later, before we adjusted. For
those of us (un)lucky enough to be alive today, the immediate future seems
very bleak indeed. Thanks to thinking machines.

~~~
sliverstorm
Well, first of all painful adjustment in the immediate future is worth the
permanent advancement after the adjustment. Second of all I feel we have every
reason to believe advancements like this are inexorable, so I would rather
devote my thoughts to how best to handle them rather than how to stop them or
to lament how unfortunate it is.

I would also argue that the greatest skill humanity possess is not dexterity,
pattern matching, or anything else like that. But, rather, _adapting_.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Easy to say, Guy With A Job. Hungry people have other opinions. If we had,
say, a Basic Income in place (or other hunger-proof social network) then I'd
lean toward a Utopian view of progress as well.

------
ArtDev
Cool. Robots.
[http://www.fanuc.eu/uk/en/robots](http://www.fanuc.eu/uk/en/robots) "With
more than 100 models, FANUC offers the widest range of industrial robots in
the world."

------
Shivetya
not sure if I buy this, while the idea sounds cool the complexity of that
gripper tells me that there have to be simpler means to grip fruit without
damaging it that would be faster, something along the lines of suction
mechanisms where you can stack many of them; like on a roller.

What I am getting at is, besides the obvious complexity of the "hand" is how
many can you fit into the area and how fast can they move the product?
Identifying the good product from bad isn't hard, many food production lines
do that and blow off items they don't want.

------
wcummings
I don't know, people are really really good at things like this (picking
fruit), which robots are generally speaking very bad at, and migrant labor is
cheap. Why is this a disruptor?

~~~
hugh4
For starters, not every country is the US, we don't all have vast hordes of
illegals willing to work for next to nothing.

Secondly, and without wanting to start a political thread, the US might not
either soon because President Trump.

Overall there's a point at which this becomes economical (just as there was a
point at which automated harvesting of every other crop became economical
starting with the 19th century) and it depends on labour costs in each
country. It won't be super-soon, but it will happen eventually.

~~~
Jack000
Never thought I'd see someone endorse trump on hn. September never ends I
suppose.

------
supergirl
DISRUPT

------
compostor42
Automation like this is why I call BS on the "we need more immigrants to keep
the economy going!" folks.

We will be struggling to keep our existing population employed. The last thing
we want to do is import even more low-skilled labor who will soon be made
redundant.

Increasing automation means a declining population is a godsend rather than a
problem.

Policy makers must be aware of this. I suspect the call for increased
immigration are politically motivated (replacing the existing population with
a more reliable voting block) rather than sincere economic concerns.

This recent article is a great example. The author gleefully explains how
replacing the existing white population with immigrants will reduce the NRA's
base.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/19/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/19/the-
nra-will-fall-its-inevitable/)

~~~
BuckRogers
You had me agreeing until the part about the NRA base going down with
increased immigration. Now I'm all for it.

~~~
compostor42
Purposeful demographic replacement of white people to achieve political ends.
Lovely.

~~~
BuckRogers
> Purposeful demographic replacement of white people to achieve political
> ends. Lovely.

Why is being white so important? What's the difference? If the difference is
no NRA, sounds like a decent trade to me.

~~~
compostor42
>Why is being white so important? What's the difference?

Replace "white" with "jewish" and you'd fit right in with holocaust
deniers/apologist.

So just to be clear, you have no problem with ethnically cleansing a nation to
change its political disposition?

~~~
drdeca
I'm a bit confused about why you (seem to) think that is a good analogy?

One wrinkle that might be part of your idea is that instead of comparing the
act of promoting immigration to the act of genocide, you are instead comparing
the defense of promoting immigration to a denial or approval of genocide.
Perhaps this is what the analogy is based on?

However, I expect that you are aware that many people distinguish between
killing members of a group or preventing them from reproducing, against just
outnumbering the group? Some people tend to distinguish between those.

Another thing, you use the term "ethnically cleanse". The association's people
generally have for that term usually include an active eradication. Not just
ending up being in the minority of the population. Similarly, due to the word
"racial" in the phrase, people often interpret it as referring to an act of
effecting in a targeted manner those of some specific "race".

most People would generally not describe the act of dropping fat man and
little boy as being acts of "racial cleansing", though they did result in the
drastic decrease of a population of a particular ethnicity in a region. People
are more interested in the number of deaths that occurred, and other damage
done, than they are on the impacts on the population of a particular
ethnicity.

For most people to consider something to be intended as "racial cleansing",
they generally have to consider the the intent behind the action to be
motivated by "racial" things, not just the action to happen to have an effect
on "racial" things.

~~~
13thLetter
Let's put aside the admittedly inflammatory rhetoric. Are you arguing that if
the government decided to peacefully change the population's demographics in
order to make a currently unpopular political goal more achievable in the
future, that would be okay?

Because that's about the most anti-democratic thing imaginable. In a
democratic society it is absolutely, unconditionally wrong for the government
to do such a thing. The government serves at the pleasure of the people, not
the other way around!

~~~
drdeca
No, I'm not really arguing that.

I'm mainly just arguing against the comparison to racial
discrimination/eradication.

I agree with your point that replacing the people so that some different
things will be voted for is harmful and undemocratic, at least if done by the
government.

But the problem would be in corruption, basically, not genocide, as the one I
responded to claimed, and I think that is an important distinction to make.

Bad arguments for things one agrees with should be refuted as well as for ones
one disagrees with.

Although, a limitation on my agreement: many potential actions by a state
could influence the population in an area in a way that might change how the
area votes. I think it would be generally not a good idea to forbid all such
actions, because that would only make it such that the impact of how it is set
up does not change, it would not make it so that it does not have an effect.
That's not to say that there shouldn't be protection against changes that
would cause a harmful change in voting population, just that not everything
that incidentally would have a change to voting population would be inherently
bad.

In the end, I think, it should be the choice of the population as to whether
the govt takes some action which could impact the composition of the
population, provided that there is no other reason which it is either
obligatory or impermissible to take the action in question.

If the population freely chooses an action which will impact the way they make
future choices, it seems to me kind of like a person , for example, drinking
alcohol, or taking a mind altering substance, whether it is a medicine or a
harmful substance.

Unless the action is forbidden (such as, for example, an actual genocide) or
obligatory (not sure of what an example would be here.) , the population would
choose whether to take an action which would change itself.

Edit:

Something I thought of just after sending that:

Consider woman suffrage. That was a decision which influenced the collection
of people who constituted the voting population. I think it was a good
decision.

~~~
13thLetter
OK, then. I think a lot of people here got weirdly hung up on the nature of
the demographic change, as if the skin color of the people affected somehow
affects its morality.

With regards to women's suffrage, the Nineteenth Amendment became part of the
constitution after extensive public debate, overwhelming approval by Congress,
and approval of a supermajority of state legislatures, exactly as spelled out
in the Constitution; it also had support among the public. That was the
epitome of a change effected in the proper democratic fashion.

------
sitkack
I think this would free migrant farm labor from having the burden of income,
freeing them to be wondering poets. Reminds me a recycling sorting robot,
which in my country is done by the mentally disabled. Just the kind of person
you want to take a job away from.

~~~
wolfram74
Jobs are pretty shitty, they get in the way doing any real work. If we can
have a functional society where robots deal with all the manual labor, the
owners of the robots get half the profits and the other half get spread
uniformly amongst the populace, anybody who wants to work on things that
demonstrably unprofitable like writing linux kernel, or teaching their
children to read, or advanced math or analyzing adventure time for asinine
thematic story telling, well, who knows what we might get done.

~~~
hugh4
And remind me why I, as a farmer (hypothetically) who spent millions of
dollars buying a piece if land and millions more to buy robots to work on it,
then spends all his time worrying about maintenance and shipping and prices
and pruning and planting and weeds and so forth... remind me why I should
consent to having my profits confiscated and given to other organisms for no
reason other than that they happen to be of the same species?

Imagine the social unrest when a large portion of the populace is literally of
negative value. It's not going to be pretty.

We need to start thinking now about how we're going to achieve a smaller but
more elite population, so only useful people get born.

~~~
wolfram74
one: taxes are your subscription to the society plan that offers you property
rights and other elements that allow an investment in farm equipment to be
profitable.

two: the metric you use to determine the value of a person is highly
arbitrary, based on GDP, divorces are better for society than marriages,
despite the fact that children going through divorces suffer in school and
later go on to accomplish less, capitalism is generally too myopic to actually
address any existential risks to the human race.

