Automation

SIFT with David Doepel

Dr James Krahe joined FFS Research Program Deputy Lead David Doepel at Murdoch University to discuss SIFT - Sustainable Innovative Food Technology WA, exploring the opportunities for small businesses emerging from the facility, the potential of High Pressure Processing (HPP) technology, and the power of collaboration. David also shares his personal journey in value-adding, crafting cheese at Melville Park with fellow custodian and partner, Barbara Connell.

SIFT with Catherine McDaid

Catherine (Cat) McDaid serves as the Quality Assurance Manager at the Sustainable Innovative Food Technologies (SIFT) Centre in Western Australia. SIFT is a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to fostering innovation within the food and beverage sector by providing businesses with access to advanced manufacturing equipment and expert guidance.

Spi-VSTL: Image data collection platform using off-the shelf hardware for vertically supported crops in state-of-the-art glasshouses

Spi-VSTL: Image data collection platform using off-the shelf hardware for vertically supported crops in state-of-the-art glasshouses

Horticulture crop growers are moving from conventional to protected crops, aiming for quality food production utilising fewer resources. Skilled labour for monitoring and maintaining crops in these compact environments has been identified as a major cost and can be reduced using automated image-based crop monitoring. There is a range of protected cropping infrastructures targeting different…

Food technology challenge program

Food technology challenge program

The project enables FIPWA SMEs to adopt sophisticated processing techniques that improve product safety, shelf life, and consumer appeal. It also builds technical capacity within the cluster and lays the groundwork for broader application of advanced processing technologies, positioning participating SMEs for sustainable growth and market expansion.

Leafeon: Towards Accurate, Robust and Low-cost Leaf Water Content Sensing Using mmWave Radar

Hong Jia, Hao Qian, Wenyao Chen, Yihe Yan, Aaron Quigley, Chung Tung Chou

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Leafeon: Towards Accurate, Robust and Low-cost Leaf Water Content Sensing Using mmWave Radar

Plant sensing plays an important role in modern smart agriculture and the farming industry. Remote radio sensing allows for monitoring essential indicators of plant health, such as leaf water content.

MotionLeaf: Fine-grained Multi-Leaf Damped Vibration Monitoring for Plant Water Stress using Low-Cost mmWave Sensors

Mark Cardamis, Chun Tung Chou, Wen Hu

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MotionLeaf: Fine-grained Multi-Leaf Damped Vibration Monitoring for Plant Water Stress using Low-Cost mmWave Sensors

In this paper, we introduce MotionLeaf , a novel mmWave base multi-point vibration frequency measurement system that can estimate plant stress by analyzing the surface vibrations of multiple leaves. MotionLeaf features a novel signal processing pipeline that accurately estimates fine-grained damped vibration frequencies based on noisy micro-displacement measurements from a mmWave radar. Specifically we explore…

Evaluation of screening technologies for detection of foreign bodies including soft plastics

Evaluation of screening technologies for detection of foreign bodies including soft plastics

This project investigates advanced sensing technologies to evaluate their effectiveness in detecting soft plastic contaminants. The study focuses on identifying methods that can reliably detect these materials within complex food matrices, enhancing contamination prevention strategies.

PC4C_CAPSI: Image data of capsicum plant growth in protected horticulture

PC4C_CAPSI: Image data of capsicum plant growth in protected horticulture

Feeding the increasing global population and reducing the carbon footprint of agricultural activities are two critical challenges of our century. Growing crops under protected horticulture and precise crop monitoring have emerged to address these challenges. Crop monitoring in commercial protected facilities remains mostly manual and labour intensive. Using computer vision to solve specific problems in…

Revolutionising indoor pollination with a smart robotic platform

Revolutionising indoor pollination with a smart robotic platform

Challenge Horticulture is one of Australia’s most labour intensive agricultural sectors. Labour accounts for a significant portion of crop production costs, particularly in tasks such as monitoring, harvesting and pollination. This is particularly true for indoor growers, who often must resort to manual pollination due to the low numbers of natural pollinators in Australia. Solution…

Machine vision based plant height estimation for protected crop facilities

Machine vision based plant height estimation for protected crop facilities

The increasing demand for quality, year-round food production in limited space has led to the widespread adoption of protected cropping. Effectively monitoring and maintaining crops within these facilities requires substantial labour and expertise. Traditional manual monitoring is labour intensive and time consuming. Therefore, non-destructive image-based techniques, particularly those utilising 3D structural data, have gained attention.…

Banana industry turns to robots and AI for ‘dangerous’ packing-shed task of cutting fruit from stem

Banana industry turns to robots and AI for ‘dangerous’ packing-shed task of cutting fruit from stem

It takes a bit of effort to get bananas from the farm to the fruit bowl, with growers relying on a significant workforce to pick and pack each harvest. Now, scientists are working with the industry to develop a prototype robot arm to separate the banana fruit from the stalk, a labour-intensive process known as de-handing.

Robotic arm under development to automate banana de-handing

Robotic arm under development to automate banana de-handing

The A$2m research programme will use computer vision and machine learning to find an automation solution Australian scientists are researching and developing new technology to build a robotic arm that will automate the repetitive and intensive parts of banana processing. The research will be delivered through Hort Innovation and led by the Queensland University of Technology…

Banana industry turns to robots and AI for ‘dangerous’ packing-shed task of cutting fruit from stem

Banana industry turns to robots and AI for ‘dangerous’ packing-shed task of cutting fruit from stem

It’s often top of the list of Australia’s most popular fruit, finding its way into lunch boxes and smoothies across the country every day. But it takes a bit of effort to get bananas from the farm to the fruit bowl, with growers relying on a significant workforce to pick and pack each harvest. Now…

Banana dehanding automation technology

Banana dehanding automation technology

This research focuses on the automation of banana de-handing, aiming to reduce manual labour and enhance processing efficiency. By developing and integrating robotic systems into this core process, the project addresses labour constraints and creates opportunities for wider automation adoption in banana handling and packaging operations.

Autonomous robotic platforms for greenhouses

https://research.qut.edu.au/

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Reference Material

Autonomous robotic platforms for greenhouses

The goal of this project is to research and develop a fully autonomous robotic crop management system for protected cropping systems that will help the horticulture industry reduce the risk of crop loss and improve productivity by having the right information to make better decisions. A new crop monitoring and automation robot is currently being…

Enhancing Atmospheric Freeze Drying with ultrasound technology

Enhancing Atmospheric Freeze Drying with ultrasound technology

This research project explores the application of direct ultrasound in Atmospheric Freeze Drying (AFD) to enhance water diffusivity and reduce drying time. By integrating ultrasound technology into the AFD process, the aim is to accelerate moisture migration and improve overall drying efficiency. The project involves both computational modelling and the design and fabrication of a prototype ultrasound-assisted AFD system. The system's performance will be evaluated by analysing the drying kinetics and conducting physical and chemical characterisation of model foods.

Robotic Task Automation in Protected Cropping Systems: enabling autonomous pollination in Australian greenhouses using mobile robots

John Skinner, Garima Samvedi, Jordan Erskine, Chris Lehnert

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Robotic Task Automation in Protected Cropping Systems: enabling autonomous pollination in Australian greenhouses using mobile robots

This final report encapsulates the joint effort between Queensland University of Technology and P’Petual Holdings Pty Ltd in developing an autonomous mobile robot for enhancing the pollination process in greenhouses, particularly for Tomberry tomatoes. This initiative aimed to integrate and elevate P’Petual’s proprietary pollination system with autonomous capabilities, thereby addressing the labour-intensive and costly aspects…

A unique vertical farming system with Vertical Patch

The Vertical Patch team explains the company’s state-of-the-art indoor growing system.

Soil moisture sensing with mmWave radar

Soil moisture sensing with mmWave radar

Soil moisture is a significant factor that influences plant productivity and natural resource management. Accurate commercial soil moisture sensors often require manual data collection and cost thousands of dollars, which makes data collection inefficient and only accessible to high-budget smart farms. To achieve cost-effective and high-efficient soil moisture sensing, we propose a millimeterwave (mmWave) radar-based…

The word’s tiniest tomato

The word’s tiniest tomato

How the merino sheep breed kick-started Australia’s wool industry; Using mules to move livestock in feedlots; Port Stephens oyster growers face devastating QX disease; plus the world’s tiniest tomatoes.