Robot and sensor integration
We will develop fully autonomous robots and automatic sample preparation, and enable in-line measurement of heterogeneous foods by robotic control of smart sensors.
The research area is led by Pål Johan From at NMBU and divided into three work packages. Key partners in this pillar include Robot Norge, Saga Robotics, Tine, Prediktor, Hoff, Norilia, BioMega, Nofima, SINTEF, University Lincoln
Work Package 1: Robotic operation of sensors in processes
The aim of this work package is to enable in-line measurement of heterogeneous foods by robotic control of smart sensors.
We will develop and build:
- New robotic techniques to optimize the performance of current and new sensors mounted on robotic arms
- New prototypes for use under real process conditions.
Work Package 2: Automated sample preparation
In this work package we will develop automatic samples preparation for high-throughput spectral fingerprinting of biological liquid samples by FTR and Raman.
We will:
- Develop fully automated robotic systems for separating phases such as microbial biomass from media and protein solutions
- Test the solutions in fully automated screening micro-cultivation systems and different scale bioreactors.
Work Package 3: Mobile robots for field sensing
The purpose of this work package is to develop fully autonomous robots for automatic collection of large-scale quality data in the field.
We will do this in three steps:
- Integrate a suite of sensors on the Saga Robotic’s Thorvald mobile platform for exploration purposes in open fields.
- Develop autonomous robots for measuring quality features in potatoes using NIR, and investigate predicting yield and quality on strawberry farms.
- Develop autonomous platforms that can measure potato in stacked storage crates (post-harvest).