Researchers at Oregon State University areobserving human fruit pickersin an attempt to copy their movements with robot fingers.
The technology could relieve people of some of the arduous labor of fruit harvesting.
“Speed, reliability, and cost are the main drivers,” Kantor said.
Georgia Tech
A human harvests 1-2 apples per second.
Farmers have a very low tolerance for equipment failures in the field.
Scaling to reliable, cost-effective production is a big challenge."
Tevel
But manufacturers are racing to build robots that can beat human pickers.
“The situation in orchards is worse than in greenhouses for a few reasons.
Many Ways to Pick Fruit
Robot-picked fruit is already on the shelves of some stores in Britain.
Automatons Two robots developed by Fieldwork Roboticsharvest berriesin Portugal.
“But there’s actually a lot more that gets done before that point in the cultivation cycle.”
“The technology’s not quite there yet.”
