Amid a severe shortage of manpower, a team comprised of researchers from private companies and a university in Aichi Prefecture is working on developing a self-driving robot that uses cutting-edge technology to support flower-growing farmers.
In fiscal 2019 the group hopes to start marketing automated, handcart-type robots that follow pickers of roses and chrysanthemums, carry the cut flowers, and deliver them to collection points.
In a laboratory at Toyohashi University of Technology in Toyohashi, a roughly 1-meter-high handcart-type robot — equipped with three cameras and two infrared radar devices — moves back and forth, changing direction smoothly.