From mobile platforms that deliver automated pollination services – and, potentially, carry other crop-tending tools – to a banana de-handing robot, Dr Chris Lehnert and his team of QUT Centre for Robotics are helping reduce labour costs to Australia’s protected cropping industry.
At the 2024 For Food’s Sake Summit in February, QUT (Queensland University of Technology) Centre for Robotics Chief Investigator and FFS Project Leader Dr Christopher Lehnert gave an inspiring presentation on future opportunities for robotics in the agriculture sector, and particularly within the fast-growing area of protected cropping.
A flexible robotic platform to deliver crop-tending services 24-7
In his Summit presentation, Dr Lehnert detailed a recently completed FFS-backed project titled ‘Enabling task automation in protected cropping systems with autonomous mobile robots’. Over two and a half years. he and his research team customised an automated mobile platform for commercial greenhouse horticulture business and FFS industry partner P’Petual Holdings Pty Ltd. to enable P’Petual to pollinate plants without the need for either bees or human intervention.
The platform the team delivered was robust, reliable, accurate and cost-effective. It was able to navigate pipes and rails, smoothly transporting the company’s proprietary automated pollination system around its glasshouse without error and stopping to buzz-pollinate each tomato plant in turn. The customised – and customisable – platform is fast and energy-efficient. It can run remotely 24-7. And it promises to boost P’Petual’s tomato yields while reducing labour costs.
Already, the new, fully automated, bee-free glasshouse tomato pollination system is being used by P’Petual in its commercial facility. The company has also onsold the rights to the system.
The P’Petual-QUT mobile robotic platform project team with the new robot platform. Image courtesy of Chris Lehnert
Automating banana de-handing
In his latest project with Future Food Systems, Dr Lehnert is collaborating with Australia’s banana industry to find a way to automate one of riskier and more labour-intensive tasks in commercial banana production: de-handing.
In March 2024, Dr Lehnert travelled to Innisfail in North Queensland to see manual de-handing in action, talk with industry members, and ascertain the key parameters for developing an effective robotic de-handing tool, as detailed in the images below.
Manual banana de-handing in Innisfail, Queensland. Images courtesy of Chris Lehnert/QUT
The ‘Banana de-handing’ project team inspects a hand of bananas, and discusses the features that will need to be included in the robotic de-handing tool the team is looking to develop, at a recent meeting with banana growers and manual de-handing workers in Innisfail, Queensland. Images courtesy of Chris Lehnert, QUT
The ‘Automating banana de-handing’ project team is now applying this knowledge to design a robust robotic de-handing tool that performs the job safely, fast and well.
Once a prototype tool has been developed, it will be field-trialled, tested and, if all goes well, commercialised.
The successful development and adoption of robotic banana de-handing will free up horticultural workers to perform other equally important but less laborious, less risky tasks.
Automated de-handing will benefit the banana industry significantly, saving growers time, labour and insurance costs.
Read more about the ‘Automated banana de-handing’ project here.
These are just two of a number of automated agricultural solutions being developed with industry and FFS backing across Australia. For more information about FFS-backed automation projects, click here.
Learn more about latest technologies revolutionising agriculture at the 2025 For Food’s Sake Summit in Coffs Harbour. Register your interest here.
Lead image: Dr Chris Lehnert, QUT Centre for Robotics Chief Investigator and research lead on the FFS-backed ‘Automating banana de-handing’ project, with members of Australia’s banana industry in Queensland. Image courtesy of Chris Lehnert.