Are we slowly being replaced by robots?
Meet Wall-Ye: The French grape-picking robot which can work day and night – and may well put vineyard workers out of a job
If your secret dream is to head to France to take a summer job picking wine, you best be quick or you will be out of luck.
For a new vineyard worker is around, who has four wheels, two arms and six cameras, prunes 600 vines per day, and never calls in sick.
The Wall-Ye V.I.N. robot, brainchild of Burgundy-based inventor Christophe Millot, is one of the robots being developed around the world aimed at vineyards struggling to find the labour they need.
It takes on chores such as pruning and de-suckering – removing unproductive young shoots – while collecting valuable data on the health and vigour of the soil, fruit and vine stocks.
Sales demonstrations are about to begin, and big name French vintners like Bordeaux’s First Growth Chateau Mouton-Rothschild have offered their vineyards as a venue for the 20-kilogramme (44-pound) robot to put on its show.
Wall-Ye draws on tracking technology, artificial intelligence and mapping to move from vine to vine, recognise plant features, capture and record data, memorise each vine, synchronise six cameras and guide its arms to wield tools.
White with red trim, 50 centimetres (20 inches) tall and 60 wide, it also has an in-built security mechanism is designed to thwart would-be robot snatchers.
‘It has a GPS, and if it finds itself in a non-designated vineyard, it won’t start. It also has a gyroscope so it knows if it’s been lifted off the ground,’ Millot said.
‘If that happens, the hard-drive self-destructs and the robot sends a message to the winegrower: ‘Help!”