Metomotion
Reaping the Fruits of Automation
Overview
Designing a user-friendly app and a yield optimization dashboard for controlling an innovative tomato picking robot
Metomotion, pioneers in precision greenhouse farming robotics, are revolutionizing tomato harvesting with GRoW, an award-winning autonomous greenhouse worker. Their advanced system identifies ripe tomatoes and packs them efficiently with a limited human support, promising higher yields and resource efficiency.
Metomotion approached Cognit to design an integrated app for harvest progress monitoring and robot control. The challenge was to transform an existing highly technical application into a user-friendly and effective app, while eliminating unnecessary complexity. In addition, Cognit designed an analytics dashboard, offering insights into crop health and work efficiency.
Project highlights
The secret life of greenhouse robots: Finding creative visual solutions to simplify robot movement and decision criteria for the human user.
We started with a comprehensive analysis of the existing technical application ,along with complementary research. Then, the UX team at Cognit identified user challenges and priorities and crafted a clear and efficient app for the greenhouse worker. The operational concept streamlined grower’s daily operations into three sequential phases: day start routine, harvest operation, including setting of ripeness criteria, robot driving and harvest progress monitoring, and day end procedures.
Two visual concepts were presented to the client, leading to the development and implementation of a sleek UI design for the chosen concept. A unique control solution for robot management was developed as part of the app UI, accommodating both wide and narrow driving configurations.
Besides the farmer app, Cognit was asked to design a cloud-based dashboard to provide analytics for improving grower outcomes and predictability. The UX designers recognized the diverse interests of the main users of the dashboard - agronoms and greenhouse managers. Together with the UI team at Cognit, they created an adaptable dashboard, offering insights into crop health and yield for agronomists, while focusing on work efficiency for managers. Visualizations of ripeness and yield statistics, including weather forecasts, were made available to optimize decision-making and enhance yield data interpretation.
