Conversation

Nice tethered-drone tentacle hack… lots of possibilities for this form factor if you can accommodate the tether. Endurance becomes irrelevant and payload goes up since no battery needed and that’s often the heaviest bit. I want this got my mansion orchard
Quote Tweet
Fruit farmers' most difficult task is organizing the havest. Tevel's drones select, pick and box only ripe fruits with the help of an AI working day and night [full video: buff.ly/3APys9i]
Embedded video
0:45
1.1M views
9
90
Replying to
I’m not sure it would be? Articulated arms are very heavy and need high-torque drives or messy hydraulics. The driven load is high. Drones are actually pretty efficient I think. I saw a paper showing they can be more efficient than trucks for deliveries under many conditions.
1
Replying to
Wow this is not my intuition but I have more confidence in your understanding of the mechanics than mine. The “pickers” I’m comparing to (eg biological laboratories, fabs) are very fast and accurate (but I presume those are v expensive, no mass market option?)
1
Replying to and
Also, the hub vehicle in video looks ridiculously poorly designed. They couldn’t do better than just a flat surface that easily bruised produce gets dropped on?
1
Replying to
I think this is still an early stage startup. Those are easy issues to fix. This application may be a sweet spot. The drones themselves are light. They’d carry an apple sized load about 50% of the time mostly downwards. Seems like light work.
1