New artificial intelligence technologies that are improving farm production and disease prevention
Researchers at Griffith University have developed and deployed new artificial intelligence technologies for primary industry, helping to improve production and disease prevention on farms.
Led by Professor Yongsheng Gao, the team hails from Griffith’s Institute for Integrated and Intelligent Systems, and School of Engineering and Built Environment. Together, they have created the DeepBerry, a commercially viable robot designed as a strawberry grading and quality control system. The DeepBerry’s functions include detection of overripe and underripe fruit, bruises normally not visible to the naked eye, and foreign objects.
The DeepBerry is based on innovative structural, textural, visual and spectral analysis technology, developed by the research team. Already, it has been tested and adopted by local producer Sunray Strawberries in its strawberry packing sheds at Wamuran, in Queensland, and Myonga, in South Australia.
The DeepBerry benefits Australian strawberry farmers through cost-effective, rapid, rigorous and objective checking of fruit quality. The system has demonstrated appeal to the quality control team at Coles supermarkets for its capability to automatically eject low-quality punnets and reduce risk of pest contamination and disease.
Research and development to implement a fully automated quality management system for strawberry picking, packing and quality control has advanced in partnership with investors and with the support of competitive federal grants.
Professor Yongsheng Gao
Director of the Institute for Integrated and Intelligent Systems