Robotics in greenhouses. Scoping review

One of the main initiatives to increase the profit, production, and quality of greenhouse horticulture, as well as its sustainability, is the use of robots. This paper focusses on the state-of-the-art of the use of robots in greenhouses since the 1980 s on the basis of the PRISMA methodology. It is really a scoping review because the main objective is to map the literature on the application of robotics in greenhouses to identify key features, terminology, context, applications, and scope related to this topic, without critically evaluating individual developments. The authors propose a terminology and a set of criteria to classify the technologies related to greenhouse robotization. Research methodology has been to extract information from scientific databases (mainly Scopus, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, Web of Science, and IEEE Xplore) using a combination of filters and keywords related to this topic. Specifically, 330 publications have been identified up to 2023, including 257 in this study. Statistical analyses have been applied to assess the risk of bias and compare the results, showing significant statistical differences. Finally, based on these analyses, conclusions are presented from technical, socioeconomic, and application perspectives, as well as identifying the main R + D + I challenges and opportunities for the development of robots for greenhouse agriculture tasks.