The spark from the collision of "LED lighting + robot": production efficiency increased by 100 times

According to foreign media reports, the world’s first robot vegetable garden will appear in Kyoto, Japan. This vegetable garden will be officially put into production in 2017, and robots will do everything from planting, management, harvesting to distribution.

According to reports, the Kyoto company Spread plans to plant 10 million lettuces on this farm, with robots taking over all work in the garden, from sowing, harvesting to transportation, fully automated. The robot is also responsible for monitoring carbon dioxide levels and lighting conditions in the vegetable garden.

The company said that the output of robot farms is high, labor costs can be reduced by half, and consumers can also buy cheaper vegetables.

This automated farm will be located in Kansai Science and Technology City in Kizugawa City, covering an area of ​​4,800 square meters. The construction cost includes nearly 2 billion yen including research and development machinery funds. Construction of the farm will begin in the spring of 2016 and is expected to be completed in the summer of 2017.

Spread issued a statement saying that the new farm will be available in the second half of 2017. It will initially produce 80,000 heads of lettuce per day, and will gradually increase thereafter. The goal is to increase the daily output to 500,000 heads within five years to further expand its share of the domestic and international markets.

New farms still require manual labor to confirm whether seeds have germinated. Due to the extremely fragile nature of germinating seeds, existing seeding robots cannot successfully perform this task. But the company believes the problem can eventually be resolved.

Currently, Spread has set up an artificially lit lettuce garden in Kameoka City, Kyoto, which can produce 7.7 million heads of lettuce every year and supply it to more than 2,000 stores in Tokyo.

This kind of indoor farm has many advantages compared to traditional farms. Due to the use of three-dimensional planting troughs and hydroponics technology, it occupies an extremely small area, and up to 98% of the water can be recycled, and there is no need to spray pesticides. In addition, artificial lighting and strict temperature and humidity control make it easier for vegetable growers to control and implement production plans.

Japanese plant physiologist Shigeharu Shimamura recently created an industrial-scale farm in a factory. The farm occupies about half a football field and is equipped with 17,500 specially designed LED lights, which are distributed on 18 planting racks with 16 floors each. They can simulate day and night. By closely monitoring the photosynthesis process, the growth rate of lettuce is 1.5 times faster than that of outdoor farms, the scrap rate is also 40% lower, and the production efficiency is increased by 100 times.