A British company has successfully developed robots to pick raspberries as part of efforts to help the soft fruit sector deal with staff shortages.
Cambridge-based Fieldwork Robotics, which launched in 2016 to develop and commercialise the work of University of Plymouth robotics lecturer Dr Martin Stoelen, says its robotic technology is now being used commercially in two locations in Portugal.
It says the robots – which use a combination of 3D cameras, sensors and machine learning to identify if a fruit is ripe enough to be picked – are designed to work alongside the human workforce and fill any gaps in productivity.
“Through our technological advances and commercial deployments, we are making real progress in the development of our harvesting robots,” said Fieldwork Robotics director and chief executive, Rui Andres.
“Raspberries are very sensitive so we have had the develop technology that can apply enough pressure to release the fruit from the stem without damaging it.
“At the same time, our sensors are now so advanced that they can tell if the fruit is ready to be harvested or not, meaning what can be sold is all that is picked.”
He said the long-term aim is for each robot to be capable of picking more than 25,000 raspberries over the course of a day – this compares to human workers being able to pick around 15,000 berries in a typical eight-hour shift.
The company has developed two systems and it says it can adapt the robots for different crops by changing the software algorithms and tools at the end of the harvesting arms.
The two systems are: a vertical harvester which can be adjusted depending on the height of the fruit plants; and a horizontal system which can work in multiple farming environments and be used through rows of crops for picking without human supervision.
Mr Andres said he hoped the technology would help address staff shortages in the farming sector – the UK is facing a shortage of around 90,000 harvest workers each year.
“Our purpose has always been to help growers harvest everything they produce, keeping waste to an absolute minimum and ensuring they can operate in a sustainable manner,” added Mr Andres.
Aberdeenshire farm produces some of the first raspberries of the UK season