This is a general purpose packer designed for apples but capable of packing other fruit. The prototype has packed apples in Nelson. It is the first of eight systems to be installed. Each unit can pack 150,000 apples in a 24 hour period or 18 million apples in an apple-packing season of about 120 days. The system accepts bulk apples, singulates them and then rotates each apple until its best side is uppermost while the axis of the apple is horizontal. It then places the apple with its axis aligned in the tray. It uses two proprietary robots and a sophisticated vision system to accomplish this.

This is an autonomous 4-wheel drive robotic vehicle which performs the following functions:
• Uses GPS and intelligent vision to navigate kiwifruit orchards; manoeuvring around obstacles such as posts and recognising braces at the end of each row.
• Identifies fruit, discriminating for size and gross defects. Picks the fruit and places it gently into the bin. Checks the fruit level at each point in the bin and adjusts fruit placement to fill the bin evenly.
• Decides when the bin is full, goes to the end of the row and unloads the bin. Searches for and picks up an empty bin with its forks, returns to the last position and resumes picking.
• Operates 24-7, checks for light level and operates floodlights if necessary. Checks for rain or dew and covers the bin with a tarpaulin when this is detected so that picked fruit is protected.
• Goes into secure mode (for example when the fruit is wet), moving the robotic arms to a safe position, switching the unnecessary power systems off, and maintaining power only to the main (monitoring) computer and radio link. Wakes up when appropriate and resumes picking.
• Receives and responds to communications via radio link and uses voice recognition to respond to verbal commands.
• Uses a variety of recovery strategies to deal with faults such as getting stuck, vision becoming obscured, etc.
• Collects data on the fruit yield from a particular orchard.

Future Applications

The stereotypical manual wheelchair has many disadvantages; it is inefficient, cannot surmount the smallest object, requires both hands and is hard on the hands. It has very limited mobility for any user who is not strong and energetic. Essentially, it offers no gearing and although wheelchair ramps are becoming more prevalent, many people do not have the strength to use them. Based on these limitations, we developed an alpha prototype of a manually operated four wheel drive wheelchair which, in its crude first attempt, offered the following features:
1. Single handed operation – the user could carry a cup of coffee while going from one place to another.
2. Surmounting obstacles such as those shown in the accompanying images.
3. Travelling at 20 mph on black top when operated by a person of average fitness.
4. Reclining comfortable seat whose design is medically superior to the traditional hammock seat of most current wheelchairs.
5. Travels comfortably over grassy or gravel surfaces. 6. Exercises the full upper body rather than primarily the triceps (as in the case of the manual wheelchair).
7. Offers gearing so that very weak people can climb wheelchair ramps, albeit slowly.
8. Little friction associated with the hand grip for propulsion.