SBIR Phase I:Development of a Multi-Robot System to Reduce End-to-End Labor Automation Costs in Local Food Production

The broader impact/commercial potential of this SBIR Phase I project lie in the greater availability of healthy, local, and affordable produce for all levels of society through new methods of end-to-end labor automation and energy management in urban agriculture. Through a low-footprint vertical greenhouse design, this technology will enable individuals to grow produce on small areas of available space for their community. The produce will be an attractive alternative to large-scale industrial agriculture and foreign food imports, not only for sustainability concerns, but through its superior freshness, quality, and taste. This project will have an impact on the advancement of local farming technologies to further the viability of commercial food production in urban communities. Creating an economically viable urban farm will have lasting impacts on the U.S. food system and environment as it will provide a means for sustainable food production. The Phase I effort will be used to design, build, and demonstrate a subscale vertical farm prototype that demonstrates cost-effective methods for all aspects of the farm’s end-to-end labor automation. This will advance the implementation of robotics in food production by addressing the labor and energy barriers that local controlled environmental agriculture systems currently face. To achieve this objective, key challenges include (1) automation to completely remove human labor over extended durations, (2) low-cost design for setup and ongoing operations, and (3) the ability to adjust product outputs in real-time to market demands. Human interaction with the grow process will be limited through high degree of system automation, including computer vision for plant inspections and self-cleaning processes. Novel plant growth and handling processes will allow for virtually any type of produce. A variety of sensors are used to carefully monitor conditions and adjust the system, allowing fresh produce in areas without suitable agricultural opportunities. The prototype robotic farming system being developed in the Phase I effort will demonstrate the end-to-end labor automation and energy management technologies necessary to the expansion of urban agriculture. 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.