Bhubaneswar, Mar 03: A new robotic system developed by researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) may revolutionize indoor farming by solving one of its biggest challenges: manual pollination.
Indoor farms, also known as vertical farms, allow year-round crop production with less water and land, no need for pesticides, reduced carbon emissions from transportation, and minimized food waste. However, these farms often lack access to natural pollinators like bees and birds, requiring humans to hand-pollinate each flower—a time-consuming and labor-intensive task.
To address this, Ai-Ping Hu, principal research engineer at GTRI, along with Assistant Professor Shreyas Kousik and a team of student interns, has developed a prototype robot capable of efficiently pollinating plants with both male and female reproductive parts. The robot not only delivers pollen precisely but also provides microscopic inspection to assess pollination success—an innovation not seen in previous robotic systems.
A major breakthrough came from solving the “pose” problem—understanding a flower’s orientation, shape, and symmetry to ensure accurate pollen delivery. Robotics master’s student Harsh Muriki used computer vision techniques to reconstruct 3D images of flowers into 2D images with depth information, enabling real-time detection using the YOLO (You Only Look Once) system. Computer engineering intern Ved Sengupta fine-tuned the algorithms, bridging the gap between 3D modeling and 2D detection, a critical step in making robot-assisted pollination possible.
The prototype, built in Kousik’s Safe Robotics Lab, can also evaluate each flower’s pollination success, providing actionable feedback for growers. The team’s work has been accepted for presentation at the 2025 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Atlanta.
“This technology has the potential to transform indoor agriculture by reducing labor and improving crop yields,” said Hu. “It’s the first device we know of that combines pollination with microscopic inspection to monitor reproductive success.”