AI pollinates plants, creates smart clothes and explores the ocean

News from the fields

An Israeli company BloomX implemented an artificial pollination to boost crop yields at an avocado orchard in Eyal, a kibbutz in central Israel. The firm uses algorithms to predict the optimal time to maximize the efficacy of pollination. The system entails eight drones connected to a platform utilizing AI and machine vision to analyze images of the fruit fed by their cameras. This helps determine not only which fruit is ripe and ready to be picked, but also sugar content and any diseases. The drones use suction to gently pull the fruit off the branch and place it in a bin, with humans needed mainly to oversee their operation. The technology is in use in Israel, the United States, Italy and Chile and works on more than 40 different types of apples, peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots and pears.

Another case from Israel, but from a totally different domain comes from Accyourate, an Italian digital health manufacturer whose smart T-shirt records and monitors vital body signs such as heart rate and breathing patterns. Accyourate has opened a data analysis center in Tel Aviv. The center seeks to use techniques such as machine learning (ML) and deep learning to analyze the extensive longitudinal multi-parametric big data collected by Accyourate’s wearable devices. The goal is to extract patterns and correlations for the development of personalized healthcare strategies, proactive health-related alerts, and medical interventions. Accyourate’s washable e-textile shirt monitors seven body signals — ECG, heart rate, breathing pattern, body temperature, movement, GPS, and body position for fall alerts. The T-shirt is connected to a proprietary AI-driven cloud-based software platform that securely collects, stores, and analyzes vast amounts of data. The data is transmitted to a user’s smartphone or smartwatch.