Robohub.org
 

Harvest automation


by
06 February 2011



share this:

And so it begins! The January 14th episode of Robots Podcast features an interview with Joe Jones, CTO of Harvest Automation (previously with iRobot).

 

Harvest Automation didn’t start out with the idea of building robots for greenhouse operations, instead they looked around for a market where their initial efforts, to develop what was essentially a larger, more powerful version of the Roomba (without the vacuum), would be applicable outside of the initial context, instead of their having to start from a blank slate for each application.

 

They settled on agriculture, beginning with a machine to move potted plants around, operating alongside human workers. It isn’t hard to imagine how this platform might develop in various directions to perform other horticultural tasks, eventually evolving into a scalable system capable of applying intensive methods to large land areas. That’s not the stated goal of Harvest Automation, but the profit motive may very well lead them in that direction.



tags: , ,


John Payne





Related posts :



Researchers are teaching robots to walk on Mars from the sand of New Mexico

  02 Sep 2025
Researchers are closer to equipping a dog-like robot to conduct science on the surface of Mars

Engineering fantasy into reality

  26 Aug 2025
PhD student Erik Ballesteros is building “Doc Ock” arms for future astronauts.

RoboCup@Work League: Interview with Christoph Steup

and   22 Aug 2025
Find out more about the RoboCup League focussed on industrial production systems.

Interview with Haimin Hu: Game-theoretic integration of safety, interaction and learning for human-centered autonomy

and   21 Aug 2025
Hear from Haimin in the latest in our series featuring the 2025 AAAI / ACM SIGAI Doctoral Consortium participants.

AIhub coffee corner: Agentic AI

  15 Aug 2025
The AIhub coffee corner captures the musings of AI experts over a short conversation.

Interview with Kate Candon: Leveraging explicit and implicit feedback in human-robot interactions

and   25 Jul 2025
Hear from PhD student Kate about her work on human-robot interactions.

#RoboCup2025: social media round-up part 2

  24 Jul 2025
Find out what participants got up to during the second half of RoboCup2025 in Salvador, Brazil.

#RoboCup2025: social media round-up 1

  21 Jul 2025
Find out what participants got up to during the opening days of RoboCup2025 in Salvador, Brazil.



 

Robohub is supported by:




Would you like to learn how to tell impactful stories about your robot or AI system?


scicomm
training the next generation of science communicators in robotics & AI


 












©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence