Autonomous sweepers and shakers will be used in ofi's Sunraysia orchards for the first time this harvest. Bonsai Robotics Head of Product Brian Baumgartner (above) has been in Sunraysia getting the autonomous machinery set up for the 2025 harvest.
OFI has introduced autonomous shaking and sweeping machinery in its orchards in Sunraysia for the first time this harvest.
The company’s general manager orchard operations, Louw Lourens, said the technology will help drive efficiencies.
“It provides us the opportunity to have consistency in our operational activities,” he said.
“This also allows us to mitigate variability in operator capability.” Mr Lorens said this harvest some of the equipment still needs an operator to perform some tasks, including turning machinery on headland, but full autonomy is expected in the near future.
When this eventuates, operators won’t need to sit inside each of the sweepers and shakers. Mr Lorens said while this will reduce the company’s need for seasonal workers it won’t eliminate the roles completely.
Ofi also has some shuttle trucks that can be converted to autonomous sprayers when the harvest is completed.
Mr Lourens said being able to use the equipment year-round is beneficial. “It allows us to focus on a more efficient and productive equipment matrix, as well as an improved return on investment,” he said.
Ofi first started trialling autonomous machinery in 2021, when 10 GUSS sprayers were used on the company’s orchards in Sunraysia. Last year the company’s GUSS fleet grew, with another six sprayers being acquired for orchards in New South Wales.
Mr Lourens said introducing new equipment is a work in progress, but the transition for staff was easier because autonomous spraying was already being carried out.
“There is definitely also technology improvements, but the support from service providers allows for an easier transition,” Mr Lourens said. The autonomy software being used by ofi was developed by Bonsai Robotics and the Visionsteer technology is fitted to Orchard Machinery Corporation (OMC) and Flory Industries machinery.
Bonsai’s Head of Product, Brian Baumgartner, said the vision-based autonomy software works in dusty environments and under the orchard canopy where tree branches block GPS and mobile coverage.
“Bonsai Visionsteer uses cameras in conjunction with other sensors on the vehicle,” he said.
“While GPS can be used to enhance certain parts of certain jobs, it is not required for Bonsai’s system to navigate and work in the row.
“The cameras see more like humans do and often they can see better due to deliberate placement on the vehicle that is outside of the dustiest areas.” Mr Baumgartner said there is major opportunity to increase efficiency and rethink the way almonds are harvested.
“Bonsai-enabled machines are more consistent and faster than human operators since they don’t have wandering attention, don’t need breaks, and handle repetitive tasks (like shaking trees) extremely consistently,” he said.
“In addition to cost savings and efficiency gains in labour for growers, there are additional cost savings through lowered fuel and consumable usage, reduced maintenance, and availability/readiness to complete jobs on the farm.
“For shaking in particular, we’ve found that most growers who use Bonsai in California can see a minimum cost saving of about 45%.”
Mr Baumgartner expects more machines will be shipped to Australia after harvest.
They’ll be used for spraying, the 2026 almond harvest and in other crops. “One major benefit of Bonsai’s technology, which heavily leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) is that the system is constantly learning from new data that it encounters to get better and better over time,” he said.
“When we encounter something new in Australia that we haven’t seen in California, Bonsai can simply upload the data from its machines to retrain the model and then deploy a software update over the air to improve performance.”