Technology
Agrograde AI sorter reaches 89 percent arecanut accuracy
The Hindu BusinessLine·
Startup Agrograde has deployed an AI optical sorter for arecanut at Vikas Traders in Mangaluru. The line can process about one tonne an hour, or close to eight tonnes a day. Accuracy rose from about 75 percent to about 89 percent after updates. The system captures 10-12 images per nut. Earlier, around 15 people processed roughly 40-45 bags a day.
Prism
What It Means For You
- Packhouses handling arecanut gain a stated path from manual bag sorting to near-autonomous inspection.
- Each lot now yields a quality summary covering size distribution, defects and nuts packed.
- Vikas Traders said it is the first private arecanut firm to adopt this level of AI sorting.
What's Happening
- Agrograde installed the first commercial unit at Vikas Traders in Mangaluru.
- Co-founder Rakeshkumar Barai said the sorter took almost five months and three product iterations.
- Models run on NVIDIA-powered computing after training on lakhs of crop images, the company said.
Why Colour Sorters Were Not Enough
- Conventional colour sorters mainly spot colour differences, while this system targets external defects beyond colour.
- An individual worker previously sorted roughly two bags a day before the line was automated.
- Raj Padaliya of Vikas Traders said the warehouse sorting process is now almost completely autonomous.
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