Muddy Machines: The future of robotic harvesting

“We consider the whole life of the product when we design it”

In this episode of Third Angle, we explore the world of agricultural robotics with Muddy Machines, a pioneering company tackling the challenges of modern farming. 

Join us as we learn all about how Muddy Machines' innovative robot, Sprout, is improving asparagus harvesting. Design engineer James Fraser gives us an inside look at the sustainable technology that’s reducing soil damage, cutting emissions, and addressing labor shortages in agriculture. Discover how automation is shaping the future of farming and what it takes to bring these versatile robots from the workshop to the fields.

Find out more about Muddy Machines here. 

Find out more about OnShape here. 

Your host is Paul Haimes from industrial software company PTC. 

Episodes are released bi-weekly. Follow us on LinkedIn and X for updates.

This is an 18Sixty production for PTC. Executive producer is Jacqui Cook. Sound design and editing by Rema Mukena. Location recording by Martha Owen. And music by Rowan Bishop.

Transcript

Welcome to Third Angle, where we're exploring the future of agricultural robotics.

I'm your host, Paul Hames from industrial software company PTC. In this podcast, we share the moments where digital transforms physical and meet the brilliant minds behind some of the most innovative products around the world, each powered by PTC technology.

Today, We're at Muddy Machines meeting James Fraser, a design engineer at the company who talks us through their innovative robot, Sprout. In this demo, we'll see how Sprout autonomously navigates fields, identifies ripe asparagus, and efficiently harvests it with precision. James gives our producer, Martha Owen, a tour of their workshop space and shows her the robot's key features, including its GPS, navigation, AI driven image recognition, and the custom tablet app used to control its operations.

We'll get a look inside at the technology and the design that made Sprout a game changer in modern farming.

I'm James Fraser. I'm one of the design engineers at Muddy Machines. Muddy Machines was founded by Chris, our CEO, in lockdown actually, in 2020, during the COVID pandemic. His specialism is robotics, and was sort of looking for problems that really needed solving. And actually through conversations with farmers and growers across the UK, found that one of the biggest problems they're facing is the labour shortage.

Actually, it's labour shortages due to a number of different things. Things like the COVID pandemic, Brexit, and the war in Ukraine as well have all really affected farmers who rely on manual labor to harvest their crops. He built up a particularly great relationship with a guy called John Chin. The Chins are a family of farmers that run Co Brew Farms, which is one of the, actually I think the biggest asparagus grower in the UK. And he was able to very quickly develop a prototype,   and test it in the fields.   and actually, since then we have been working alongside people like Co Brew Farms,   to test our robots in their fields,   and keep harvesting asparagus.

So, welcome to the workshop.   this is,    , where we build all of the robots and,  , but where we also work as well. Sprout is about sort of roughly the same size as maybe a big golf buggy. It has,   wheels, it has,   a sort of suspension system. It has the ability to navigate using GPS,   and it can operate autonomously.

So that's the sort of,   the main part. So then we have our,  , asparagus harvesting tool, or we call it, or the, the implement, if you like. And that goes,  , on the back. And then the whole system drives over,   rows. So asparagus is planted and lots of vegetables actually are planted in rows. Then the,  , robotic harvester.

It kind of comes down from above as it drives along,   to do the cutting and the picking and then the transferring into,  , baskets.   it's got body panels,   they're, it's white at the moment with,  , we have sort of blue and red trim,   it's got some big chunky tires,   and in a minute I'll show you, it's got a big flashing beacon on the front.

We have a bunch of cameras at the front as well, to, so we can see where it's going. Should hear a loud click. Oh, there we go.

So that's,  , that's it starting up. It's got,  , cooling fans inside, because it gets very hot out on the farm in the season.   so then we connect up. We have a tablet that controls the robot.   so I can just Connect up to that, but you'll see it's got a bunch of green lights at the front as well, turn on some things.

Okay, so now we go to the tablet,  , that's on, so I think now we can drive it. We have a custom tablet app that we've developed. You can drive it forwards and backwards, but then I can also get the asparagus harvester turned on as well. I've connected up the harvest, the asparagus harvester. So let's turn, maybe it's out on the lights, let's turn on the conveyors.

So we've got some conveyors on there as well. So the asparagus gets dropped there and it gets transported to the back and then I can turn on the, these crop storage systems at the back as well. Then we have these paddle, you see these paddle things? That's used to distribute the asparagus in the basket.

And then we have, this is our gantry system.   so I can do, I can hone all of these features here. These bits that are moving up and down and kind of in and out are the, those are the parts of the system that harvest the asparagus. So this bit,   there's two of them in the middle here.   and what they do is, when, when the system detects that an asparagus is present, it will come in,   it will find the base of that spear, it'll drop down, it'll cut the spear, it'll grab it, and then it'll move it over to one of the conveyors.

  and I can show you the, I can show you the blade moving forwards and backwards, so it goes like that. And it also makes this sound.

So that sound is the blade oscillating from side to side. So to, to cut through the base of the asparagus, we have to kind of saw through it. And we do that with this reciprocating blade. Essentially it started as,   yeah, just kind of the simplest platform that you can imagine. Since then it's got a bit more sophisticated.

We knew, we knew it's quite a powerful computer that can do some of the,   sort of image recognition. We use artificial intelligence to teach the system what an asparagus looks like. One of the most challenging parts of the design has been the part that actually picks and cuts the asparagus. That was really difficult because actually asparagus is quite unusual in this.

It's quite tough. We had to come up with a system that was,   sharp enough to get through the crop. Reliably every single time something that was robust enough that didn't need to be replaced Very often we want it to last as long as possible But the great thing is we've now got a solution that we're really happy with that works really well And we've had it out harvesting um Yeah, many many kilos of asparagus a few thousand spears

Sustainability plays a really big role in the work that we do. We design our robots to be,   as lightweight as possible. These days, a lot of modern agricultural equipment is,   it's just getting heavier and heavier and heavier. So you get tractors,   and other vehicles, sort of six tons,   10 tons, 12 tons.

Some of it is huge pieces of equipment. So you've probably seen it, you know, it carves up deep ruts in the soil. It breaks down a lot of the really important organic structures that plants rely on to grow.   the animals rely on to, to live in and even that microorganisms,   rely, rely on to flourish.   and actually that is having an impact on the short term and long term yield of farms and farmland.

  the soil is essential for us to be able to grow crops and You know, grow plants that help the planet. We are actually losing soil globally, you know? So in a sense, it's not replaceable in the lifetime of most of us.   so actually we really need to preserve it. We need to protect it. We need to look after it.

  and one of the best ways to do that is to not. damage it with heavy machinery. One of the other ways we've focused on sustainability at Muddy Machines is we,   make our, all of our robots electric. So agriculture again has traditionally relied on combustion engines, you know, diesel powered vehicles,   you know, A lot of that is producing a lot of emissions, making a lot of noise.

We're 100 percent electric.   we also make sure that a lot of the materials that go into our robots are safe, non toxic.   and that we can disassemble them again easily at the end of their life. So we try to consider the whole life of the product when we design it.

It's generally speaking true everywhere from,  , the UK, even to places like California, that actually,   picking fruit and vegetables is very, very hard work. It's, it's backbreaking work.   it's, you're working in the hot sun, you're working long hours. It's seasonal so you don't have a guaranteed job for the whole year, you know, the future of agriculture is Probably going to be more automated.

We sometimes talk a lot about how   you know, there was a time about, you know, a hundred or so years ago where agriculture went from being mostly horse drawn to mostly tractor driven. And we kind of think we're seeing another shift like that now. Having, having robots that are multifunctional,   and that you can have lots of doing different things at the same time.

I think that's really attractive. The next thing we are focusing on is,   getting our robots ready to sell. So,   and there's a bit of work involved in,   getting them ready for production, like batch production of the robots. Currently, the robots we have, we have all, we've built them all by hand in our workshop.

But actually if we, we need to scale up,  , production and get ready to make more.   and that means outsourcing some of the, some of that building to other manufacturers,   all in the UK. So there's a bit of work involved there. We also need to get it,   sort of,  , certified.   we need to add a few,   extra safety features,   because obviously it's being autonomous,   and having a, you know, a cutting blade on it needs to be really safe.

So we need to add some. you know, extra sensors,   just to make sure that it's as safe as possible on farmland.   I think our vision really is that in the future we would be, we would see at least one sprout on every farm. That would be the goal.

That was James Fraser from Muddy Machines, guiding us through the world of innovative farming. Now it's time to meet our expert, John Hirschtick from PTC. John, Muddy Machines is revolutionizing the agricultural sector by addressing farm labor shortages and promoting sustainable harvesting. How does Onshape enable Muddy Machines development and innovation in creating their advanced robotic solution?

Onshape enables Muddy Machines development and innovation rate in creating their robotic solutions through several key points. One, Onshape's continuous iteration and branching and merging. Onshape's branching and merging capabilities have been crucial. They allow the team to explore different design versions without compromising a master or original model until they're ready to incorporate those changes.

So this feature has enabled rapid development, especially for complex components like the robotic arm harvesting tool, which requires precise adjustments to handle the delicate task of cutting asparagus plants close to the soil. Another point, automated saving and data security Onshape's automatic saving feature, continuous automatic saving of every edit, not an autosave of files, but every editing transaction, it's provided peace of mind to the Muddy Machines team, ensuring that no work is ever lost, even during intensive design sessions.

Unlike their previous experience with SOLIDWORKS, where crashes could result in hours of lost work, Onshape's reliable cloud infrastructure guarantees that every change is saved in real time, preventing any loss of progress and letting designers design fearlessly, knowing they can always go back to any previous state.

Another key point, automated part management. Onshape has streamlined part management for muddy machines, automating the generation and tracking of part numbers. This automation has eliminated the need for manual spreadsheets. allowing the team to focus more on innovation and less on administrative tasks.

This enhances their overall efficiency and reduces the risk of errors in part numbers. And another  , fourth key point mobility and accessibility on shapes cloud native platform allows the team to access CAD and PDM data from anywhere, whether in the workshop or on the farm, this flexibility is particularly valuable during the assembly and testing phases were real time access to accurate CAD and PDM information is crucial for ensuring that sprouts design.

aligns with practical farming conditions.

Thanks to John for teaching us more about Onshape, our guest James Fraser for showing us how their technology is helping the lives of farmers and our producer, Martha Owen, for taking us on the tour with her. Please rate, review and subscribe to our bi weekly Third Angle episodes wherever you listen to your podcasts and follow PTC on LinkedIn and X for future episodes.

Companies that make products the world relies on rely on PTC. This is an 18Sixty production for PTC. Executive producer is Jacqui Cook. Sound design and editing by Rema Mukenna. Location recording by Martha Owen. And music by Rowan Bishop.