Bowery Farming acquired Traptic, which utilizes computer vision, robotic arms and artificial intelligence (AI) to harvest fruiting, vine and other delicate crops.
"Traptic is the perfect complement to Bowery's industry-leading technological advances," says Injong Rhee, CTO of Bowery Farming. "The dexterity and precision of Traptic's robotic arm movement engineered by 3D localization and pathing is very exciting. By joining forces with Traptic, Bowery's network of smart indoor farms will achieve another level of technological sophistication and maturity."
"I am thrilled to join forces with Bowery, the world-class leader in smart indoor farming, on their mission to democratize access to local, more sustainable, and pesticide-free produce," says Lewis Anderson, CEO and co-founder of Traptic. "The technology we built to operate in harsh outdoor farm environments will work even better indoors, which will translate into even higher quality produce like strawberries, other fruiting and vine crops, and so much more."
From PR Newswire:
- Traptic’s technology will accelerate the commercialization of fruiting and vine crops. Traptic combines 3D cameras and AI with robotic arms equipped with a unique gripper to harvest fragile fruit and vine crops. The vision system utilizes 3D cameras and neural networks to distinguish ripe from unripe produce and determines their position with millimeter-precision. Then the AI figures out how the robotic arms should move to pick the ripe crops from their plants.
- Traptic's technology will seamlessly integrate into Bowery's network of farms powered by its proprietary BoweryOS, which uses software, hardware, sensors, computer vision systems, machine learning models and robotics to orchestrate and automate the entirety of its operations. Adding Traptic’s technology into the network will increase the productivity and efficiency of farming and improve the modern farmer experience.
