SBIR Phase II: AI-Powered Robotic Harvesters for Greenhouse Cultivation

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is to improve agricultural yields at lower costs. The proposed Phase II project will advance the development of an autonomous universal harvesting robotic system. By combining artificial intelligence with dexterous robotic systems that physically care for each plant, growers can boost their yields while decreasing operational complexity. This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project will develop critical technologies for robotic agricultural harvesting systems. New machine learning and computer vision techniques will be used to construct three-dimensional models of the growing environment. These models will inform automatically calculated movement plans for a multi-degree-of-freedom robotic arm that avoids obstacles and items that could entangle the robot. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.