Indian Experts Create A Tree-Climbing Robot To Harvest Coconuts

As tech jobs are attracting an increasingly large portion of the workforce, the country is facing a shortage of coconut harvesters. This’s why local experts have assembled a coconut-harvesting robot called Amaran in the hope to fill in the void.

The prototype of Amaran was created by Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham University’s scientists. The team behind the creation is led by Assistant Professor Rajesh Kannan Megalingam.

The team has spent three years making the robot and it’s now in its sixth incarnation.

To use the robot, first, users have to wrap its ring-shape body around the coconut tree with its eight omnidirectional rubber wheels. After the assembly process is up, Amaran starts climbing up the tree.

The robot is controlled by a joystick unit or a smartphone app. Users get to move it up and down, as well as rotating it around the tree trunks.

Once it reaches the coconuts, Amaran's arm fixed with a saw blade extends and cuts through the base of a bunch of coconuts.

In a test at a coconut farm, Amaran could climb up to 15.2m and work for longer hours than a human harvester. So while it’s slower, the durability can potentially make up for the lack of speed.

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