The first robot that can be used for plucking raspberry is being set to work in the United Kingdom. After ascertaining the age of the fruit, the gripping arms of the robot plucks the fruit and then deposits it gently into a waiting punnet. This entire process of plucking takes about a minute for a single berry.

The cost for development of the robot was £700,000 but its developers strongly believe that this is the future of fruit-picking. According to Fieldwork Robotics, a spinout from the University of Plymouth, while the speed of human workers at picking raspberries is about 15,000 in an eight-hour shift, each one of the robots is able to pluck a total of more than 25,000 raspberries a day.

The robot is being tried out in the UK where Brexit-related shortages of seasonal workers and increasing labor costs have come out as major challenges to the farming industry.

Brexit fears coupled with the surging economies of Romania and Poland have prevented workers from these two countries to coming into the UK in search of work and find opportunities in their own countries.

Hall Hunter, amongst the leading players in Britain in the berry growing industry and one that supplies Tesco, Marks & Spencer and Waitrose, is a partner in the development of the robot. Its developers have started field trials in a greenhouse at a Hall Hunter farm near Chichester in West Sussex. The robot is 1.8 metres tall.

Machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence, it put to use by the robot for picking berries in addition to using sensors and 3D cameras for guidance. A raspberry can be plucked by the robot in 10 seconds or less and drop it in a tray when the machine operates at full potential.

There would be four grippers, all of which would pick berries simultaneously, would be present in the final version of the robot which is expected to go into production next year.

Robots that are also able to pick tomatoes and cauliflower have been tried out in the practical field in China.

Rui Andres, portfolio manager at Frontier IP, one of the main backers of Fieldwork, said that these robots are able to work for 20 hours a day because they do not get tired but getting them to  adapt to different light conditions is the challenge for their developers.

Farmers in the UK generally pay their human pickers between £1 to £2 for a kilogram of raspberries, say Andres. The robots would be leased at a lower average costs to farmers by Fieldwork.

Dr Martin Stoelen, a lecturer in robotics at Plymouth University, is the conceiver and lead developer of the robot. His grandparents’ farm in Norway gave him the inspiration for developing the robot. The scientist hope that this technology can be used to enable robots to be used in picking other berries, fruit and vegetables because raspberries is one of the most difficult soft fruits to pick.

(Adapted from TheGuardian.com)