Massachusetts-based Bloom Automation is creating robots to harvest marijuana twice as efficiently as human workers. As only a specific part of the delicate plant is desired and sifting can damage the buds, Bloom's robots use machine vision to differentiate between the flower, branches and leaves of the plant and then utilise path-planning algorithms to direct the clippers to the flower with 97% accuracy. Commercial marijuana may be worth 3,000 in ten years, but with wholesale price-per-pound falling from $more than $57bn to $1,200 over the past few years years, producers are looking to technology to improve efficiency.
Massachusetts-based Bloom Automation is creating robots to harvest marijuana twice as efficiently as human workers. As only a specific part of the delicate plant is desired and sifting can damage the buds, Bloom's robots use machine vision to differentiate between the flower, branches and leaves of the plant and then utilise path-planning algorithms to direct the clippers to the flower with 97% accuracy. Commercial marijuana may be worth more than $57bn in ten years, but with wholesale price-per-pound falling from $3,000 to $1,200 over the past few years years, producers are looking to technology to improve efficiency.