Metafarmers Completes Official KTL Test Evaluation of Cucumber Harvesting Rate and Speed

Physical AI Company Leading Agricultural Automation

Metafarmers, a physical AI (artificial intelligence) specialist in agricultural automation, announced on November 20 that it has completed the official KTL test evaluation of cucumber harvesting rate and speed as part of the "Regulatory Innovation Robot Demonstration Project: Cucumber Robot Development and Demonstration," supported by the Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement.

Metafarmers has implemented a stable automatic harvesting system by integrating AI vision technology based on visual servoing (robot control using image sensors) with a gripper.

The company is developing a multipurpose agricultural robot called "Omni Farmer." This single platform handles a variety of agricultural tasks such as harvesting, pollination, sorting, and monitoring, and can be applied to traditional farms, vertical farms, and greenhouses through its dedicated gripper and AI recognition technology.

Metafarmers' hardware research team has repeatedly tested at the farms of demand institutions to verify a gripping and harvesting method that minimizes fruit damage and has completed an optimal structure to maintain the commercial quality of crops. In addition, by utilizing cucumber growth data, they applied digital twin technology and multi-object recognition algorithms to enhance the precision of automated harvesting technology adapted to farm environments.

Metafarmers' Omnipharmer is currently demonstrating automatic cucumber harvesting at the farms of demand institutions. Metafarmers

Through this demonstration, Metafarmers has confirmed the field applicability of automatic cucumber harvesting technology, which is rarely commercialized worldwide. The company plans to commercialize a universal model that can be expanded to various crops by simply replacing the gripper on the same platform. Currently, Metafarmers is conducting demonstrations at a large smart farm in Seosan ahead of the market launch of the Omni Farmer, a physical AI robot for strawberry harvesting.

Lee Kyuhwa, CEO of Metafarmers, stated, "This research demonstrates that agricultural automation can move beyond simple experimentation to actual operation in real farm settings. Going forward, we will expand our research scope to address a variety of crops such as cucumbers, apples, and leafy vegetables, and continue to drive technological innovation that enhances the productivity and sustainability of agriculture."