10132322PRESTO- Parallel low-cost multi seedling Transplanting robotClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKThe central innovation of the PRESTO project is to develop an industrial grade multi-seedling transplanting gripper that both goes beyond the capabilities of a human hand or a conventional parallel gripper- and supported with state of the art 2D/3D vision and robot arm motion planning system. Transplanting seedlings from floats of various sizes as the plant grows is a highly repetitive and laborious task done manaually by human labourers. In large facilities the rate of production is limited by the rate/efficiency at which manual operators can transplant, in addition to critical shortage of low-skilled labor. The task itself requires high degree of dexterity, speed, soft manipulation hence presenting a range of research challenges for robotic automation. With a modular architecture, inhouse designed electronics, prototype costs only £200 (in comparison to parallel grippers that can cost £3K or more), PRESTO brings in approximately a 75x reduction in cost to automate a highly complex/dexterous task using cutting edge Robotics.