Urban Vertical Farming and Smart Agri-Logistics: The Role of Soft Robotics in Feeding Tomorrow's Cities!

By 2035, nearly 70% of the global population will reside in urban areas. As cities expand vertically and space becomes increasingly scarce, feeding their residents with traditional, rural-based supply chains is becoming unsustainable. The demand for food that is fresh, local, pesticide-free, and available on demand is driving the growth of vertical farming, the practice of growing crops in vertically stacked layers within urban environments. However, as these urban farms scale, they face challenges that traditional automation struggles to solve. Soft robotics offers a groundbreaking, scalable solution to this next-generation agricultural model.

This article explores how SOMARICS’ soft robotic platforms can revolutionize urban vertical farming, enable sustainable agri-logistics, and establish cities as autonomous food ecosystems.

Unlike rural farms, urban farms face a distinct set of constraints:

• Limited Space: Every square meter is expensive and must be fully utilized.
• Labor Shortages: Urban labor costs are high, and skilled agricultural workers are rare.
• Logistics Pressure: Urban farms must deliver within hours to retail points or homes.
• Noise and Energy Constraints: Urban zoning requires quiet and energy-efficient machinery.

Traditional robotics, which is often bulky, power-hungry, and inflexible, does not adapt well to these compact and sensitive environments. Enter soft robotics.

Urban farming operators frequently struggle with ergonomic challenges due to narrow aisles and vertical reach requirements. In many rooftop or indoor setups, the physical strain of repetitive harvesting and maintenance is unsustainable. Soft robotic systems mitigate this strain by executing delicate and repetitive tasks, allowing human workers to focus on supervision, system optimization, and higher-value interventions.

Vertical farming uses controlled environments with LED lighting, hydroponic or aeroponic systems, and precision nutrient delivery. Urban vertical farms are popping up in warehouses, rooftops, and even subway tunnels in cities like Singapore, Tokyo, Toronto, and New York.

Key advantages:

• Shorter supply chains
• Reduced transportation emissions
• Lower water usage
• Consistent year-round yield
• Protection from weather volatility and climate shocks

However, these benefits hinge on reliable, scalable automation, especially in harvesting, handling, and packaging.

Soft robotics offers not just efficiency but also resilience, helping farms quickly adapt to changes in demand, crop selection, or labor availability.

SOMARICS soft robotic arms and grippers are uniquely suited for urban vertical farming due to their:

• Flexibility in confined spaces
• Gentle, damage-free harvesting
• Low-noise, low-energy actuation
• Safety in human-robot collaboration

These characteristics make them ideal for high-density crop setups and human-shared workspaces.

Example Use Case: Harvesting delicate crops like microgreens, baby spinach, or strawberries requires careful touch and adaptive gripping angles. SOMARICS manipulators use soft elastomeric grippers, integrated with lightweight AI vision modules, to navigate plant rows and harvest without bruising or waste.

Moreover, SOMARICS’ systems can adapt across a diverse range of crops: from leafy greens to vine crops and even medicinal plants. Customizable grip pressures, variable reach trajectories, and plug-and-play gripper modules make transitions between crop types seamless and low-cost.

While much attention is given to the growth phase, the real logistical bottleneck in urban food systems is the “last-meter”, from harvest to point-of-sale or packaging.

SOMARICS platforms help automate:

• On-site washing and drying
• Custom portion packaging
• Non-contact sorting for mixed produce
• Eco-friendly wrapping and labeling

Unlike last-mile logistics, which focuses on transportation, last-meter logistics is about precision handling in tight urban retail environments or directly within consumer buildings.

In the evolving “farm-to-fridge” model, modular SOMARICS units can be installed directly inside high-rise residential buildings, corporate cafeterias, or local markets, reducing friction in food access and giving rise to new business models such as micro-subscriptions and automated produce dispensers.

Urban vertical farms often integrate with smart buildings and IoT platforms. SOMARICS robots can:

• Connect to building management systems for energy coordination
• Respond to environmental data (humidity, CO2 levels, light)
• Operate within edge-computing networks for real-time, offline responsiveness

This integration enables SOMARICS modules to adapt dynamically and optimize operations without relying on external internet connections, a key benefit in data-sensitive urban settings.

In addition, SOMARICS modules can coordinate with urban microgrids and solar storage systems, enabling farms to operate during peak-hour utility restrictions or grid outages. This resilience aligns perfectly with the decentralized energy future of smart cities.

• Urban Agriculture Market Size (2035 forecast): $170 billion
• Vertical Farming CAGR: 22% over the next decade
• Retailers investing in urban food chains: Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods, Carrefour

SOMARICS provides a differentiator:

• Lower CapEx for automation infrastructure
• Fast deployment without the need for robotics experts
• Scalability from a single shelf to full-stack multi-layer farms

This positions SOMARICS as an ideal partner for both large-scale urban farming operators and property developers entering the agri-tech sector.

Furthermore, SOMARICS’ flexible automation enables diversified revenue streams: from B2B farm installations to service-based automation leasing, performance-based contracts, and pay-per-harvest models tailored for startup farms.