DENSO and Certhon introduce Artemy, a fully automated cherry truss tomato harvesting robot

Artemy is a new harvest robot ready for the commercial market after being developed jointly by DENSO Corporation — a mobility supplier headquartered in Kariya, Japan — and horticulture technology company Certhon.

The 1,100-pound (500-kilogram) robot is equipped with advanced vision technology for scanning the crop by its maturity and harvests ripe truss tomatoes.

Artemy has an automatic lane change function, utilizing the sensor and image recognition technology to recognize running lanes so it can move to the adjacent one, even in trackless environments.

It has several other functions, such as automatic replacement and transfer of crates, which reduce heavy work for growers, and several functions that contribute to the alleviation of labor shortages and the reduction of heavy labor.

“For example, the automatic lane-change function allows Artemy to autonomously move between running lanes, a long-awaited function," says Certhon CEO Lotte van Rijn.

It works alongside those present in the greenhouse safely as it stops when obstacles are detected along the lane. By equipping Artemy with a cluster and a peduncle detection LED, as well as replaceable batteries providing approximately five hours of operation when fully charged, it's possible to operate continuously regardless of day or night and under LED.

When all crates on Artemy are full, it automatically moves to a cart with empty crates and replaces them all at once, after which it continues harvesting.

In recent years, the field of food and agriculture has increasingly faced issues with unstable agricultural production due to climate change and a decrease in the farming population. There is a necessity for the establishment of a stable and sustainable agricultural production system with cultivation methods that are not affected by the climate, alleviate labor shortages and reduce heavy labor.

“DENSO’s expertise in mobility and manufacturing, encompassing image recognition, safe driving and robotics is integrated into all of Artemy’s operations, from the automatic harvesting of cherry truss tomatoes to the automatic lane changes," says Hidehiro Yokoo, senior executive officer of DENSO Corporation (Food Value Chain Business Development Division). "Going forward, DENSO will continue to combine its technology with Certhon’s cultivation know-how and horticulture technology to achieve the stable production that DENSO and Certhon aim for worldwide, making ‘Growing anything, anywhere. For everyone.' possible."

DENSO and Certhon plan to keep contributing to the realization of sustainable agriculture worldwide by continuing to develop productivity-enhancing solutions that can handle multiple varieties and take over other tasks in the greenhouses.

Artemy will be shown to the public at GreenTech Amsterdam, hall 5, stand 05.250, from June 11-13 at RAI Amsterdam in The Netherlands.