Practical testing of our GearPerformer, the sorting robot for pointed peppers, has commenced on site. Gearbox has developed a sorting robot for pointed peppers for Harvest House in collaboration with cooperative member Frestia. With vision, AI and robotics and a capacity of 12,000 pieces per hour, this should be the solution for automating manual sorting work. The following article appeared this week as part of the NPPL-R programme. As part of this programme, we are working with Frestia and WUR to optimise implementation in the production environment.
Sorting and packaging pointed peppers is a labour-intensive process, in which packers are heavily dependent on human labour for quality control and to be able to switch quickly between different packaging types. This is largely because the product is sold in small packages and not in bulk packaging, such as block peppers. "Individually assessing and sorting pointed peppers for different quality requirements and packaging makes it very labour-intensive," says Simone Keijzer of Gearbox. "After the successful development of a snack pepper sorting robot for and with pepper company Frestia, the request came to develop this for pointed peppers as well."
Practical tests of GearPerformer have commenced
Automating manual sorting work
Frestia in Honselersdijk cultivates snack peppers, sweet pointed peppers and mini vine tomatoes year-round on forty hectares spread across the Netherlands and Portugal. All locations in the Netherlands are connected to geothermal energy. The growing company is affiliated with Harvest House for the sale and distribution of its products. At the growing location in Honselersdijk, the products are sorted and packaged according to customer specifications. Here, from 6 a.m. to 3 a.m. the following night, pointed peppers are processed manually, mostly in 200 and 500 gram packages. The harvested pointed peppers are transported in crates to the packaging shed. There, the crates are turned upside down by hand and sorted according to quality and weight. If one of the two pointed peppers does not meet the weight requirement, another matching pointed pepper must be found. "Because this is a labour-intensive process and it is becoming increasingly difficult to find good staff, five years ago we started looking for ways to automate this manual work," says Patrick Franken of Frestia.
Four-line sorting robot
Franken: "In order to manage the packaging process and keep it affordable, we started looking into how we could best automate it. We then entered into discussions with Gearbox to digitise the sorting of pointed peppers by quality and weight." Over the past three years, a sorting robot with four lines, each consisting of two robots, has been developed at Gearbox's development site. The machine sorts the pointed peppers in steps. This starts with emptying the crates and then separating the product. Vision technology and artificial intelligence (AI) are then used to determine the weight and quality. This controls the robots. The first robots in the line sort out class 2 peppers, can make a specific weight selection and place the pointed peppers on the patented sorting disc.
Franken: "The first robots can remove pointed peppers of a certain weight. For example, if a customer does not want 90-gram pointed peppers in the packaging or requests a two-piece package weighing 230 grams." The second robots make the correct sets in terms of weight. These robots can also work together. The sorting robot can make sets of 2, 3, 4 or 5 pieces based on weight and quality.
Guarantee of proper functioning required
The system has now been thoroughly tested at the development site and it is time to put it to the test in practice. To boost practical experience, endurance tests with the sorting robot are needed. By testing the machine at full capacity for a long period of time, the last (possible) errors can be removed from the system. The capacity of the sorting robot is 12,000 pieces per hour.
The pepper grower: "The endurance tests are necessary to determine whether the machine can run for twenty hours straight, whether parts overheat, and whether there are any malfunctions." The endurance tests are conducted in a separate hall. "The machine must fit into our production process and function 100% properly, because we don't have time for 'adventures'. We cannot afford to have the sorting line stand still for a single day because, for example, a piece of software is not working properly." We have now reached a crucial phase in which the sorting robot's performance must be objectively demonstrated. Franken: "That's why we've set up this project, to have neutral technicians look at it and validate the process. I'm not a technician myself, but I know what I want and how it should work." Simone Keijzer: "It's great for us, the growers' cooperative and growers, to be able to get extra support from WUR during this crucial phase."
Define and implement guidelines
WUR researcher Menno Sytsma is working on various robotics projects, mostly harvesting robots, to implement technical solutions in fresh produce production. "From a technical point of view, a lot can be done based on 0s and 1s, but you need guidelines, such as for quality, which you have to convert into a properly functioning robot."
A grower provides guidelines for the quality he delivers to customers, assuming that people assess everything. Sytsma: "People don't always see the smallest details, but that has been taken into account. We expect the robot to be able to detect details more consistently. That may also mean that the robot selects much more strictly. On the one hand, the grower's end product will then be better, but as long as he cannot defend that properly to a customer, the customer will not want to pay for it and he might prefer to make the robot a little less strict again." The researcher calls this a kind of 'dilemma'. "We want to resolve this dilemma with this project. The guidelines for the robot, which are not yet entirely clear, are important for this. In order to make a fair comparison between humans and machines, we need to know what the quality requirements are and how we are going to define them for the sorting robot."
Independent validation of sorting robot
The NPPL-R programme enables WUR to independently and transparently monitor the status of this technology. Analyses relating to the business case, product quality assessment and technical support can contribute to improved acceptance of these technologies among customers. "We were not involved in the development of the sorting robot, but the parties involved appreciate the involvement of an independent party," says Menno Sytsma of WUR. WUR will independently validate the sorting robot in terms of product quality in comparison with the current working method. Relevant quality characteristics will be determined in consultation with Gearbox, Harvest House and Frestia, such as: shape, colour, weight, combination weight, product damage and external deviations. "Among other things, we will validate the creation of sets by weight. Manually, the weight sometimes turns out to be higher (overweight). If the machine results in less overweight, that's a gain." In addition to reducing overweight, Keijzer also expects a labour saving of ten FTEs.
Tekst kolommen
Linking to business management system
The project also involves technical support with a quality control tool. Sytsma: "We are looking at whether we can clarify the quality requirements for both parties that are necessary for a properly functioning sorting robot." The pepper grower indicates that the interpretation of quality is important in order to achieve the right level and how the person behind the controls can set this. The researcher: "In addition, we want to link data from the machine, which we do not yet have, to the business management system for proper integration into the business and work process. There may be bottlenecks there that we need to resolve."
Solving labour problems with robotics
Franken believes that robotisation is not only a solution, but also a dire necessity. "We cannot continue to do things the way we are doing them now. The issue of migrant workers plays a role in this." If the endurance tests of the sorting robot go well, the machine will be placed in the production environment after the end of the growing season (end of October). Franken: "It wasn't as easy as we thought, because we've been working on it for three years. We encountered quite a few difficulties, such as how to pick up a pointed pepper and how to put it back down again. It's more complex than we thought. The quality of the pointed pepper is determined on the basis of a photograph. This information has to be transferred to other robots. This required the installation of additional cameras. We sometimes wondered: is this going to work out? But we persevered."