TURPAN, China — Deep Robotics says its Lynx M20S wheeled robot dogs carried harvested grapes between vineyard workers and collection points in Turpan, China, during the August harvest. 

In an Aug. 31 release, the company claimed the robots reduced manual carrying work by more than 70%. The detailed press release did not provide any method to measure or comparative data to support the figure however.   

As per the company, workers pick the grapes, load baskets onto the robots for transport. The robots were intended to reach narrow rows and vineyard corners that larger vehicles could not easily access. Deep Robotics described the robots moving over gravel, soft slopes, shallow ditches on their way to collection spots. 

The manufacturer claims on the spec list a maximum load capacity of 35 kilograms over standard terrain for the M20S.  

The robot uses an assembly of both wheeled treads, combined with jointed, articulated legs, to enable movement over rugged and irregular terrain.  

It also says it comes with a payload capacity that includes two laser sensors and two wide-angle camera lenses, toting onbord computer with a suite of software to allow for mapping, automatic navigation, and obstacle detection. 

Deep Robotics sells M20 series robots for industrial inspection, emergency response and logistics. The vineyard post involves a transportation job, but employees were still tasked with picking and packing grapes.  

Deep Robotics gives the M20S an operating temperature of “minus 30 degrees to 55 degrees Celsius” and “2.5 to 3.5 hours run time on a single payload” and mentions a “hot-swapping battery system” that allows users to change batteries without turning the robot off.  

These are platform specs, not data points from that vineyard experience. It provides no air-temperature reading taken during the robots' operation. 

The company failed to name the involved farms, nor the number of robots or customers on the system, nor the weight of the grapes carried during each individual trip.