Massey man's robots pick of the crop

SAM BAKER

PROFOUND CHANGE: New Zealand's engineering innovator of the year, Rory Flemmer, of Massey University, in the workshop with part of an apple packer.

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New Zealand's engineering innovator of the year is Massey University senior lecturer Rory Flemmer, of Palmerston North.

Dr Flemmer won engineering's top award, presented last night by the Institute of Professional Engineers of New Zealand, for designing and building automated robots to pollinate, pick, sort and package fruit.

The wheeled robotic picker was developed to pollinate and pick kiwifruit, but can be modified for other fruit. The packer uses artificial machine vision to detect blemishes and soft spots in fruit, and was developed for apples.

The savings for the labour-strapped horticultural industry potentially runs into millions of dollars. In kiwifruit's 13-week season, 100 million kiwifruit have to be picked, and labour is hard to get.

Spoiled fruit costs the horticultural industry about $20 million each year.

He had to solve several long-standing engineering automation and robotics problems to make the systems work.

The judges said Dr Flemmer's work was targeted and applied innovation, in actual use.

"We were impressed with the potential for uptake of the innovations, and also with the potential Dr Flemmer's work has to improve lives," said judge Carron Blom.

Dr Flemmer said the award happened as a result of his daily work – teaching engineering and automation to students at Massey University's School of Engineering and Advanced Technology.

"It's a natural outcome of giving students things to build at university," he said.

Technology innovation, driven by automation and robotics, meant society was in the midst of the most profound change it had experienced since the industrial revolution, he said.

"Your cellphone could not be made by a person," he said. "It's made by the millions, by computers managing robots.

"For technological items, handmade is no longer possible. Humans can't see the components. Humans design the computers and robots that make the computers and robots that make the items."

What this meant, long term, was that societies that invested in engineering and automation, and people who could do automation, would be extremely valuable in future.

"We must keep automation in New Zealand. Manufacturing these types of technologically advanced goods isn't about human labour any more; it's about robots, and a robot is a robot no matter what country it is in."

Dr Flemmer's PhD is in chemical engineering, from the University of Natal in South Africa. He spent 18 years in America producing robotic and artificial vision systems for Fortune 500 companies such as Sony, Bausch, Union Carbide and Siemens.

He was Bausch and Lomb's international technical consultant and developed the Nimbl line of innovative robots. In 2005, he moved to New Zealand to work at Massey.

His current research areas are automated fruit packing, picking and inspection, assessing orchards using geosynchronous satellites, artificial intelligence, artificial vision, replacing sight and sound for blind people, and development of a novel wheelchair.

The New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards are the premier awards for the engineering professionals of New Zealand. The awards are presented in two major areas: Awards Recognising People, which recognise leadership, innovation, entrepreneurship and young engineers; and Product and Project Awards, which recognise achievement in the specific industries.

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