ABB Robots in Indoor Farming: Greenhouse to Countertop

Greenhouse crops were planted and picked by hand. Now robots grow lettuce in Norway, and ABB's FlexPicker, GoFa and YuMi fit the jobs around the plants.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

9/21/20261 min read

For most of the last century, greenhouse growing meant bent backs. In the Dutch Westland, crews knelt between benches to transplant tomato seedlings by hand, then came back weeks later to pick, sort and box the fruit. Glass kept the weather out, but every plant still passed through human hands several times.

Two workers kneeling among trays of tomato seedlings inside an old glass greenhouse in the Westland, Netherlands

Transplanting tomato seedlings by hand in a Westland greenhouse, the Netherlands. Photo: Charles Breijer / Anefo, via Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Automation arrived in pieces. Climate computers took over heating and watering, and conveyors started moving pots. Robot arms mostly lived in car plants back then: ASEA, now part of ABB, launched its electric IRB 6 in 1974. Picking a ripe tomato without bruising it stayed too hard for decades.

Orange ASEA and ABB industrial robots, including the IRB 6, on display in a museum room

Early ASEA and ABB arms at the ASEA historical collection in Västerås, Sweden. The IRB 6 is on the left. Photo: Dependability / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

This month, SINTEF researchers described a Coop Norge and Avisomo farm at Gardermoen, near Oslo, where robots handle lettuce from seed to sealed pack. Nobody touches the leaves until a shopper opens the bag. In Germany, eternal.ag sells a tomato Harvester that can run up to 22 hours a day.

Rows of leafy greens growing on stacked hydroponic shelves under LED strips in a vertical farm

Stacked hydroponic racks of greens under LED light at a vertical farm in Finland. Photo: iFarm.fi / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

ABB's robots fit the steps around the plants. An IRB 360 FlexPicker, which comes in a washdown-rated hygienic version, can pick lettuce heads or herb punnets off a conveyor and pack them at speed. Bigger arms such as the IRB 460 or IRB 660 can palletise the finished cases for the truck.

An ABB IRB 360 FlexPicker delta robot hanging from its mount with a suction cup gripper

An ABB IRB 360 FlexPicker delta robot fitted with a suction gripper. Photo: Marc Auledas / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Picking the crop is harder. Research teams are fitting small arms with cameras and cutters to snip peppers and tomatoes. ABB's GoFa CRB 15000 cobot carries 5 kg and slows down when a person comes close, so it could move trays between racks. OmniCore controllers and RobotStudio simulation let growers test a cell before building it.

A white research robot arm with a cutter reaching into a potted green chile pepper plant, with a camera on a tripod nearby

A research robot arm with a cutter end effector harvesting green chile peppers indoors. Photo: Lozada et al. / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0), cropped

At home, towers from Gardyn and Lettuce Grow already handle light and water, but you still pick by hand. ABB's dual-arm YuMi was built to handle small parts gently, and it shows how light a helper can be. A small arm that snips basil for dinner is not far from what these machines already do.

ABB YuMi dual-arm collaborative robot with grippers on a demo table

ABB's dual-arm YuMi at the FIRST Championship in Detroit. Photo: Stilfehler / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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