Belinda Lansley – UCVision

Drones with Tools Industry Day 2025

On 10 June 2025 we had a Drone Industry Event at the Ilam Homestead with our researchers and industry. This event included talks by our key research teams, University of Canterbury Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering Departments, plus University of Auckland.

Our project has progressed in the past year. The University of Auckland has been doing testing on our new planetary hex drone up in Auckland. The University of Canterbury team have designed a chainsaw attachment for the drone which cuts branches by clamping on and a mini chainsaw slicing through the branch. Our regular pruner also has more accuracy.

Sam Schofield did an impressive demonstration of the chainsaw tool, plus pruner. Afterwards there were useful discussions with industry regarding the project. All in all, it was a very successful event.

Arboriculture

Drone with Chainsaw

The UC Vision team successfully cut a 30mm dowel with a chainsaw attached to a drone. For more information on this research project: https://ucvision.org.nz/drones/

Aquaculture

Scanning Mussel Ropes in Tasman Bay

The UC Vision team often have their office out in Tasman Bay, Nelson whilst scanning mussel ropes with an autonomous underwater ROV. The robot is lowered off the back of the boat and guided to the mussel ropes where it scans down the ropes and detects mussel sizes, health and any pests. It then comes back to the boat where it is lifted back onboard.

This research lead by Professor Richard Green will allow more frequent low-cost surveys. It will help minimise loss and optimise harvest timing.

See https://uwairobotics.co.nz for more details

Drones

Testing our Prototype I drone

Our UC Vision team plus the University of Auckland who visited UC, recently tested the planetary hex drone Prototype I as part of our drones with tools project. The drone was designed by the University of Auckland and built by SPS Automation. The idea was to make a drone that is very stable in extreme environments. There will be another future prototype once this one has been put through lots of tests.

Aquaculture

UC Vision at the Smart Christchurch Innovation Expo 2024

Our UC Vision Team had a big presence at the Smart Christchurch Innovation Expo which was held at Te Pae, the Christchurch Convention Centre from 27 to 28 September. We had several of our team manning the UC stand which included a drone display, both underwater drones and flying drones.

Rory Clifford, who is on our team, did a talk about how he is constantly seeking and applying the latest technologies to real world applications. He talked about virtual, extended and augmented reality, digital story telling and digital twins, to unmanned aerial vehicles and underwater robotics. He has adapted these systems to a variety of applications such as fire and emergency training, helping hapū and iwi to digitally retell stories and mātauranga for current and future generations, to providing insight into underwater farming of mussels and scanning the seabed. His driving force is enabling our people to upskill and apply new technologies for our sustainable future.

Artichoke

Springtime field work

Professor Richard Green is heading a 5 year, $6 million dollar MBIE funded project “Predicting the unseen: a new method for accurate yield estimation in viticulture/horticulture” also known as the “Occlusion Project”.

Matt Mattar and Sam Heslip are currently scanning vineyards once a week with “Artichoke” their autonomous robot. Every Wednesday they drive Artichoke up the ramp and into the van to drive out to vineyards at Lincoln. There was a lovely springtime atmosphere today created by the deep pink blossom trees outside of the Jack Erskine building where UC Vision is located.

The researchers on the Occlusion team will develop a detailed, accurate digital 3D representation of a physical plant system at multiple growth stages to overcome occlusion, solving the greatest challenge to more extensively automating horticulture.

Drones

UAV Expo Las Vegas 2024

From 3-5 September 2024 the [Commercial UAV Expo](https://www.expouav.com) was held in Las Vegas, and had 4000+ attendees and exhibitors from over 75 countries.

As part of the [KiwiNet Emerging Innovator program](https://kiwinet.org.nz/EmergingInnovatorProgramme), UC Vision researchers Dr Sam Schofield and Bradley Scott attended the expo to see the latest innovations in UAV development and commercial use.

Among the many exhibitors were a variety of AI-related products ranging from [AI-powered infrastructure inspection software](https://buzzsolutions.co), to products for [enabling fully autonomous UAV navigation](https://www.vivum.ai).

Blenheim

Marlborough CIT Robotics and Automation Event

On 4 September 2024 the Marlborough District Council, hosted an event which was attended by 35 representatives from industry, research, tech, government and education. There were a lot of representatives from the wine industry. We sent a member of our UC Vision team Dr Oliver Batchelor who gave a presentation along with Jodie Kuntzch of Moananui.

The purpose of the event was to explore potential collaborations relating to robotics and automation.

Dr Oliver Batchelor gave a presentation on our workflow with scanning grapevines and showcased our technology in terms of crop monitoring through videos.

The government’s goal to double wine exports was highlighted however with increasing costs, especially labour, the profits were down. Break out groups were made to discuss this problem. The highest votes were for developing a new system framework which included “Design a new growing system where tasks and human input are reduced.”

It is clear from this event that automation using robots is the way forward in the vineyard.

Arboriculture

Drone Industry Day 2024

On the 12th of June we held an industry day at Ilam Homestead to keep industry up to date with our research. We had several industry people attend with short talks by our researchers from the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Canterbury and also The University of Auckland.

We were very excited to be able to showcase our new drone design which has been built by SPS Automation based in Christchurch. Scott Spooner attended from SPS Automation and revealed the new planetary hex drone which had been initially designed by the University of Auckland with input from SPS who are now building it. The design includes central propellers with planetary propellers around the outside of this circular design.

Sam Schofield did a wonderful demonstration outside in the gardens of Ilam Homestead of our pruning tool on a drone which runs autonomously once a branch is manually selected by a user.

The Press came to feature our pruning drone and ran an article the next day which is available online to view.

All in all, the day was a great success and everyone was very interested to see the progress we have made since the project started.

The Press article can be viewed here.

Aquaculture

Underwater ROV fieldwork in Nelson March 2024

The Underwater ROV team had a fieldtrip to Nelson in March. It was very successful with great weather over the week in Nelson and lots of data collected. The ROV scanned mussel rope lines at the mussel farms in Tasman Bay.

Autonomous scanning was refined to the point where we can accept early adopters. This is a massive milestone for spinning out our research into the real world.

Author: Belinda Lansley