The Warwick Harvest project is focused on creating an autonomous robot that can harvest spring onions. Built on the Farm-ng Amiga platform, the robot uses a special collection arm with five independent grippers. These grippers, powered by linear actuators, can grab spring onions and pull them out of the ground. After harvesting, the robot measures the diameter of each spring onion and sorts them into 'good' or 'bad' tubs using a sorting mechanism.

To move and align itself in the field, the robot uses two computer vision systems: one helps with long-range navigation by following the edges of crops, while the other, which uses a YOLOv11 model, helps with short-range alignment to find the best picking points.

This project aims to tackle major problems faced by UK farmers. One of the biggest challenges is the shortage of workers for harvesting, caused by an ageing workforce, fewer young people joining the industry, and a 17% drop in casual labor since 202. Small and independent farmers often can't afford the advanced harvesting machines currently available, and when crops are left unharvested due to labor shortages, it leads to significant financial losses. Traditional heavy machinery also causes environmental damage, such as soil compaction, which harms fields, reduces crop yields, and can cause drainage problems and more pesticide runoff. While there are automated machines for tasks like sowing and weeding, there are no fully autonomous machines for harvesting crops like spring onions, and existing harvesters still need several operators.