Projects - dr. GW (Gert) Kootstra

FlexCRAFT

Effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, hygiene, and the limited availability of skilled personnel due to unap- pealing working conditions are the drivers for replacing human labor by technology in agro-food production and processing. Robots have entered this sector but current robotic technology is not able to deal with the large variations in shape, size, and softness of agro-food products nor the variation in environmental conditions and tasks that are typical for the agro-food chain. The scientific challenge of the FlexCRAFT project is to equip robot technology with generic capabilities in active perception, world modeling, planning and control, and gripping and manipulation; capabilities needed to deal with the aforementioned conditions in a robust way. These capa- bilities will be integrated in three use-case projects in greenhouse production, food processing, and food pack- aging. These use-cases represent the class of challenges encountered in the whole agro-food chain. By inte- grating all the required disciplines, this program builds on a strong multi-disciplinary consortium of experts in both research and development and a user group with leading industry. This program is a timely response to an urgent request by the Dutch agro-food industry for more advanced robot technology necessary for the contin- ued leadership of Dutch producers in the international market.