HarvestX, Inc. has developed a new robot, XV3, and will begin offering the HarvestX, automated strawberry cultivation solution in the summer of 2023.
HarvestX is a solution that automates plant management, pollination, and harvesting in the strawberry production process at indoor vertical farms to achieve stable production. HarvestX, Inc. has been developing prototypes of automated pollination and harvesting robots (XV1 and XV2), and has now developed a new robot, XV3, with higher work efficiency than the previous demonstration models. This will enable the development of the HarvestX service, an automated strawberry cultivation solution, which will be available in the summer of 2023.
Features of HarvestX, an automated strawberry cultivation solution
Automated pollination and monitoring with robots and AI realize stable production and cost reduction.
- Automatic pollination, which is 27.8% more accurate than bees(*), reduces the occurrence of malformed fruit and improves fruit yield.
- Improved sanitation in factories by preventing the risk of disease from bee carcasses left unattended and the risk of occupational accidents such as bee stings among workers
- Analysis of seedling conditions based on data collected by the robot makes it possible to predict accurate harvest dates and yields.
*Based on the results of in-house demonstration experiments
XV3, a new robot with higher accuracy and scalability
XV3 is the core robot of HarvestX, an automation solution for strawberry indoor vertical farms. It has achieved further improvements in the accuracy of automatic pollination and harvesting from the previous demonstration models, as well as a high level of scalability that allows it to be introduced into indoor vertical farms in various environments.
The XV3 consists of two parts: the XV3 Cart, which automatically drives around the indoor vertical farm, and the XV3 Unit, equipped with sensors for data collection and robotic arms. The previous prototypes had to be custom-designed each time according to the number of shelves in the customer’s indoor vertical farm. However, the XV3 can freely select the height from 1 to 5 tiers without changing the design of the robot itself, thus enabling the robot to be introduced into various environments in a short period of time. XV3 Units also can be replaced according to the tasks to make them more efficient and meet the needs of different customers.
The new XV3 robot can relieve the shortage of workers in indoor vertical farms and significantly reduce labor costs.
Functions to be offered sequentially from summer 2023
Automatic data collection, pollination, and harvesting functions will be provided sequentially during 2023. In the future, HarvestX will have added cultivation support functions to achieve full automation by 2025.
About HarvestX
HarvestX Inc. is a Tokyo-based company, researching and developing robots for indoor farming. Founded in 2020, HarvestX has focused on pollination and harvesting robots for strawberry production at indoor vertical farms. For more information, please visit our website at https://harvestx.jp/en.