Six-armed pollination robot works in a greenhouse

Thanks to its 6 arms, the Stickbug robot can pollinate many flowers at the same time at a rate of 1.5 pollinations per minute.

Stickbug pollination robot. Video: WVUIRL

To solve the problem of endangered pollinators, especially some species of bees, moths, butterflies and flies, a research team from West Virginia University developed a pollination robot called Stickbug , Interesting Engineering reported on May 1. New research published on the arXiv database .

Stickbug is specifically designed for greenhouse environments. The robot aims to move easily between narrow aisles using a Kiwi drive system . It also has a probe and sorter that helps identify target flowers. It will conduct contact pollination using an end effector (the end of the robot arm) with a felt-covered tip.

Robots focus on precision, flexibility, and access to resources.

With 6 arms and 6 controllers, Stickbug can pollinate multiple flowers at the same time and perform different tasks independently. The robot focuses on precision, flexibility and access to resources, such as publicly available data about black raspberries.

In the actual test, the Stickbug prototype was placed in front of an artificial black raspberry tree because it was not the natural flowering season. The robot is responsible for pollinating as many flowers as possible within 5 minutes. Initial testing shows that Stickbug can perform 1.5 pollination attempts per minute with a success rate of about 50%.

The research team plans to conduct further research with tests on real trees during the flowering season. If it successfully passes all levels of testing, Stickbug will be a promising solution to compensate for the decline of natural pollinators, contributing to ensuring global food security.