12/20/09 — CMU researchers combine machine vision and intelligence to develop agricultural solution that formerly could only be accomplished manually. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC) have developed a plant-sorting machine that uses computer vision and machine learning to inspect and grade harvested strawberry plants and then mechanically sort them by quality — tasks that until now could only be done manually. In a successful field test this fall, the machine classified and sorted harvested plants more consistently and faster than workers could, with a comparable error rate. “We’re looking forward to using the system,” said Liz Ponce,…