Insider Brief
- Deep Robotics is deploying quadruped robots in China’s Longjing tea region to transport freshly picked leaves down steep terrain, working with JD Logistics to automate a labor-intensive step in spring harvest operations.
- The company’s LYNX M20 wheeled-legged robot and X30 quadruped are operating on narrow mountain paths and slopes of up to 45 degrees, addressing the time-sensitive need to move tea leaves to processing facilities within about an hour to preserve quality.
- The deployment targets rural labor shortages and the “first kilometer” logistics gap in agriculture, and is part of a broader “picked today, shipped today” pipeline that builds on earlier crop-handling robotics deployments in Chongqing.
Deep Robotics is deploying quadruped robots in the Longjing region for China’s spring tea season so farmers won’t have to carry their harvest down the mountain.
According to Deep Robotics, it’s working with JD Logistics, the company’s LYNX M20 wheeled-legged robot and X30 quadruped are operating in plantations near Hangzhou, carrying baskets of tea leaves along narrow mountain paths and slopes of up to 45 degrees. The robots are built to handle uneven terrain, including mud and stone steps, where transport has traditionally depended on manual labor.
The company, which closed a $72.6 million Series C funding round in December, indicated the deployment addresses the need for the time-sensitive transport of fresh tea leaves, which typically need to reach processing facilities within about an hour to maintain quality. Steep terrain and limited labor can slow the process, so by reducing transit times the robots help preserve product quality while easing physical strain on workers.
The company pointed out that rural labor shortages and physically demanding harvest conditions have made it harder to maintain productivity in high-value crops. Automating short-distance logistics, often referred to as the “first kilometer” problem, addresses a gap where traditional mechanization has struggled, particularly in mountainous environments.
Deep Robotics said their efforts with JD Logistics is part of a broader integrated “picked today, shipped today” pipeline in Hangzhou’s tea region, using robots to compress the time between harvest and processing and preserve product quality. The effort builds on earlier agricultural deployments in Chongqing, where the company first used robotics to handle the mustard tuber crop harvest in difficult field conditions.
Image credit: Deep Robotics
