In Ouwerkerk, Zeeland, less than three years ago, cousins Martijn and Lars Flikweert started the company Flikweert Vision Technologies with a clear goal: To develop practical solutions that will make the agricultural sector more sustainable and automated. A logical focus having parents who themselves have an agricultural business and educational backgrounds that fit into this theme: Martijn, for example, studied Agrotechnology & Management and Lars completed a Biobased Engineering (agrotechnology) University course. Not much later, Martijn's brother and mechanical engineer Stefan joined the company.
Based on their background, in recent years they have been working on a machine that can automatically sort potatoes. In most agricultural companies, this is done manually to make the batch of potatoes as clean as possible and give the highest value. During sorting, clods of earth, stones and diseased or damaged potatoes are removed. A labour-intensive and therefore expensive affair that is also far from perfect and also allows potatoes with less visible 'disorders' through. Especially when the grader in question has less knowledge or expertise.
Automation, according to the Flikweert men, was achievable by using vision technology combined with AI. This involves using cameras to view the potatoes on all sides in a short period of time and generate a large number of images that are reviewed by AI. With this, potatoes with zip needles (a type of worm that makes small holes in the potato), scab, damage, shape defects, growth cracks and greenery can be distinguished but also previously mentioned mud clods, stones and other types of contamination. Martijn Flikweert: “By first 'measuring' enough potatoes in advance and collecting data, you can make the AI system so intelligent that it reliably recognises these abnormalities. And the more data you keep collecting after that, the better the system becomes. Eventually, this also allows you to clean up very 'dirty' batches of potatoes in such a way that a practically worthless batch can be upgraded to a batch with value. Practice now shows that lots up to 50% 'tare' are salvageable.”
Martijn, Lars and Stefan Flikweert are particularly pleased with the cooperation with Festo. Martijn: “They have helped us enormously in making the right choices so that we now have a machine that meets our requirements, in which the control of the scoops works optimally with the vision system and with which we have all the possibilities to vary in the future generation of machines. We learned a lot from Festo and it was also very pleasant that we had direct contact with the right departments. No complicated constructions via account managers, just call, discuss and move on. In addition, the sales consultants at Festo are also extremely well educated technically, making the entire company a good sparring partner. We now really have the idea that we can continue independently...with Festo products, of course. The first ten machines are now with their new owners and a second series is now in the works.