ABB Robots and Safer Grain Bin Storage

From 1960 hand-filled grain sacks to bin robots like Grain Weevil and Xinhe's new funding, and what ABB's Robot Charger and IRB 660 add to safer grain work.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

9/26/20261 min read

In November 1960, photographer Erkki Voutilainen caught Finnish farm workers shovelling cereal into sacks by hand. Grain moved on people's backs, one heavy sack at a time, from the threshing floor to the store.

Black and white photo of men filling large sacks with grain using shovels in a barn
Black and white photo of men filling large sacks with grain using shovels in a barn

Farm workers shovelling cereal into sacks in Finland, November 1960. Photo: Erkki Voutilainen / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Big steel bins and augers replaced most of the sacks, but they brought a new danger. Grain crusts over or sticks to the walls, and someone has to climb in and break it loose. When the grain starts to flow, a person can sink in seconds. In September, a person in Putnam County, Indiana was pulled out alive after being engulfed in corn.

Young man sitting on the floor of a round steel grain bin beside an auger
Young man sitting on the floor of a round steel grain bin beside an auger

Sitting inside an emptied grain bin next to the auger. Photo: USDA (public domain)

Robots are starting to go in first. The Grain Weevil, a small auger-driven robot from Nebraska, crawls across the grain to level it and break up crusts, and its makers are working toward a version that runs on its own while the farmer supervises. In China, Xinhe Robotics raised $4.5 million this month to automate grain storage.

Three steel grain bins and red farm buildings behind a field of corn under blue sky
Three steel grain bins and red farm buildings behind a field of corn under blue sky

Steel grain bins beside a corn field. Photo: Corey Coyle / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

The closest thing in ABB's catalogue does the same job underground. The ABB Robot Charger, tested with the Swedish miners Boliden and LKAB, loads explosives into drill holes so people can stay back from the rock face.

ABB robot arm on a mining vehicle reaching toward a rock face in a tunnel
ABB robot arm on a mining vehicle reaching toward a rock face in a tunnel

ABB's Robot Charger loading drill holes underground, tested with Boliden and LKAB. Photo: ABB

Grain also has to leave the store, usually in bags or as packaged food, and that end of the chain is familiar ground for ABB. Palletizing robots like the ABB IRB 660 stack bags and cases at speed. At the Piracanjuba dairy in Brazil, IRB 660s took over palletizing that about 75 people used to do by hand.

Large white ABB robot stacking cardboard cases onto a pallet
Large white ABB robot stacking cardboard cases onto a pallet

An ABB IRB 660 palletizing cases at the end of a packing line. Photo: ABB

I expect farm bins to get sensors and a resident robot, with the farmer watching from outside on a tablet. Harvest is when people are most tired and most tempted to climb in, so that is when the robot would earn its keep.

Wide view of a factory hall with several ABB robot palletizing cells and stacked pallets
Wide view of a factory hall with several ABB robot palletizing cells and stacked pallets

ABB IRB 660 palletizing cells at the Piracanjuba dairy, Brazil. Photo: ABB

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