WSU Researchers Develop AI-Guided Robot That Will Pick Strawberries

Due to their delicate nature, the primary method of harvesting strawberries has been by hand, until now.

  WSU researchers develop AI robot picker

There have been attempts to pick strawberries by developing machines or robots, but it's been difficult because they 'hide' among the leaves and they're fragile.

But now according to Geekwire, WSU researchers have developed an AI-guided robot that detects and picks them by using a puff of air.

The air blows aside the leaves, and then soft silicone grippers pick the fruit. During recent field trials, the robot successfully picked at lest 3 of every four strawberries using it's system.  The WSU robot uses an AI guided vision system, a fan system that gently blows the leaves away without harming the fruit, and silicone soft grippers to grab the berry.

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According to Geekwire, there have been reasons why it's been difficult in the past:

"The system is slower than human pickers, but researchers estimate that deploying 10 robots with four arms each could harvest about 300,000 strawberries in roughly 43 hours. The scientists said a similar approach could be applied to other crops, such as grapes."

This strawberry plan is sparking tech in other areas, a Canadian group is developing a machine to harvest mushrooms and a University of Idaho research group has developed tech and a machine to clear rocks from farmland.