Off the wire
• Japanese war criminal confesses to dozens of rapes  • Minute amounts of cyanide detected in Tianjin port  • Tibetan opera draws old and young  • S. Korea to delay declaration of official end of MERS crisis  • China, Arab states to hold expo  • Sri Lankan PM confident in parliamentary polls  • Chinese stocks close higher Monday  • Taiwan stocks close 1.11 pct lower  • Roundup: S. Korea weighs ties with Japan on Abe's action  • Women war workers in America hold largest ever post-war rally  
You are here: 　 Home

Robots working in Australian agriculture

Xinhua, August 17, 2015 Adjust font size:

Robots are being used in Australia to improve the production, packaging and processing of fruit and vegetables.

The industry involves repetitive, labor intensive jobs robots which work safely next to humans could soon take some of the load, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on Monday.

Andrew Taylor, an engineer from Auto Control Systems, designed these robots.

He described the robot as an arm "which is really good for picking things up and putting them down".

The key is that his robotic arms can work alongside people. Larger robots were often much too dangerous to work with.

Taylor described plans for a robot to assist in the packing of strawberries, which is arduous and boring for people.

"They have quite a labor intensive operation," he said.

"Also, they have a very large turnover of staff, they have a lot of trouble with training, they have a lot of trouble with people doing what's basically a terribly boring job.

"Obviously, if your entire job consisted of standing at the end of the line and taking a small box of strawberries and putting it into a pallet, you probably don't last very long.

"But it's something that the robot can do 24 hours, seven days a week." Endi