Agaricus

Our goal is to develop the world's first commercial mushroom picking robot, offering end-users game-changing productivity, de-risked labour availability, increased yield and reduced food waste.

The consortium is led by Agaricus Robotics Ltd, supported by the Lincoln agri-robotics and machine vision groups at the University of Lincoln and Littleport Mushroom Farm, the second largest UK mushroom grower. Agaricus Robotic's innovative robotic mushroom harvesting system is equipped with an intelligent vision system and powered with a state of art soft gripper to pick mushrooms. On bench tests, AR's robotic system has shown globally leading performance, able to pick mushrooms without damage to the target or any adjacent ones.

In this project, Agaricus Robotic's robotic mushroom harvester will be further developed and demonstrated on-farm. This includes the development of a novel robotic arm, designed to operate in a harsh environment and integrated into the vision and gripping system.

This project develops world leading robotic harvest technology that will step change labour productivity on-farm globally. Automated harvesting removes critical labour constraints and reduces the costs of production. It expands and scales UK capacity in advanced robotics, developing innovative digital technologies with global market opportunity.