The Question
Whiteflies pose a significant threat to greenhouses, feeding on sap and causing serious damage to plants. To combat this with a natural form of insecticide, ichneumon wasps (sluipwesp) can be released to parasite and kill off the whitefly population. Ichneumon wasp larvae are planted in the form of a paper card which must be hung in a certain part of a crop every 2 metres. This is effective, but currently a very tedious manual task.
Our Answer
We changed the carrier (card) design, and developed an end-effector with a vacuum gripper, a magazine for stacked carriers, and a computer vision model to detect the right spot. Together with an autonomous mobile manipulator developed by the project partner Octiva, we can present an autonomous alternative to extensive manual card hanging.
“What was once repetitive manual work is now an autonomous, precise solution”
Partners and collaborators:
Koppert, Octiva, RoboHouse, TU Delft