The Robot Award

Agriculture, Forestry andFisheries Minister Prize

Next Generation Agriculture Partnership
Through automated vegetable harvesting robots
And RaaS modeling.
inaho Inc.

Changing the future ofagriculture through technology■Management issues and labor shortages affecting Japan’s
agriculture

require selective harvesting such as asparagus, tomatoes,years due to the aging population. There is already a labor

automatic harvesting had not made much progress in this field. At

Agriculture in Japan is projected to decrease by half in the next 15
shortage preventing expansion of cultivated land, and many
farmers do not expect to improve their yields.

Agriculture is considered to be hard labor with few breaks, but infact when it comes to production of certain vegetables, somerequire daily harvesting for over half of the year. inaho has beenworking to develop technology such as AI (artificial intelligence) to

provide robots that can act in place of people to harvest crops andmake more time for farmers.

eggplants, cucumbers, and so on are difficult for machines todetermine whether a specimen is ready to harvest, so until now
inaho, a robot has been developed that uses AI to determine
whether to harvest or not, which has made it possible to automate

the harvest. An automatic harvesting robot that collects asparagus
was implemented, and it has been providing its services in Saga
prefecture since September 2019.

■Outline of robot structure and automatic harvesting service
The robot has an electrically-powered cart, a camera and sensor todetermine what to harvest, and an arm to do the harvesting. It■Crops that can be harvested by the inaho robot

works via these three steps of moving, exploring, and harvesting. It

is ready for harvest all at once and can be harvested together ismatches the harvesting standards with the shipping standards andinaho divides crops into two categories. Harvesting of produce thatcalled “batch harvesting” and harvesting of produce that grows atdifferent rates and must be harvested as it ripens is called“selective harvesting.” Crops such as rice and potatoes areharvested using batch harvesting. A harvester is used to collect it
all at once, and the work is not strenuous. However, crops that

asparagus,okra

green
onionscarrots

potatoes,seconds per stick, and it is powered by a battery that can berecharged on a household outlet.

Rather than selling the robots, inaho provides them as a service

using the Raas (Robot as a Service) model. Consumers can choose
to pay a fixed rate or pay a flexible rate based on harvest volume.
agricultural machines, there is low setup and maintenance cost,strawberries
shitakemushrooms

green beans

peaas

lettuce,rice

can be set in one-centimeter increments. The harvest speed is 12

Compared to the traditional business custom of purchasing

Selective harvesting
Batch harvestingis equipped with a light so it can work at night. With asparagus, it

and the period of use is flexible.

The company is considering doing consulting with consumers toprovide advice on the best field environment for harvesting using
data gathered while working, in order to use the robots more

effectively. The types of harvesting will be expanded to include

tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, eggplants, green peppers, andcucumbers

greenpeppers

eggplants

tomatoes

more, while also working to lighten the load of other farming

operations such as pest control, leaf raking, and transportation. As

a service provider working together with producers, the company

onions,hopes to change the future of agriculture with the power oftechnology to improve productivity.

Batch harvesting and Selective harvestingContact:

inaho Inc.
Address: 1-15-2 Komachi, Kamakura City, Kanagawa
PR Yu Kaneta Tel: 0467-67-0561 E-mail: info@inaho.co
THE 9TH ROBOT AWARD

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