Xihelm is developing specialised agriculture-applied artificial intelligence and a machine vision algorithm that sees, understands and acts in the indoor farm to enable roboticised indoor harvesting. This represents an opportunity to optimise crop yield and to cut high labour costs. Xihelm’s first product is a software solution that uses off-the-shelf industrial robotic arms to automate the harvesting process in greenhouse tomato farms. It is currently undergoing field trials with a large commercial producer in the sector.

Beyond tomatoes, the machine vision technology being developed by Xihelm is generalised enough to be applied to other fields, both within and beyond the glasshouse.