Until now engineers have struggled to design a robot that is able to pick, inspect and pack soft fruits given their different shapes and sizes. The process is complicated further because berries need delicate handling and are often obscured beneath leaves and branches.
“Dextrous manipulation in unstructured environments is a big challenge for robotics today,” said Dr. Vishuu Mohan, from the university’s School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering. “Skilled humans find it effortless, but when we try to build a system which does the same thing it is a complex integration of vision, touch, force and movement and on top of it the ability to learn and adapt – which is the only way to deal with any changing, unstructured environment.”
Employers, fruit pickers and industry body British Summer Fruits (BSF) have all warned about a lack of seasonal workers on UK farms. A shortfall of 10 percent was already reported this summer. It is feared leaving the European Union will exacerbate the problem.
BSF chairman Nick Marston said the robot was “not a realistic proposal to help with Brexit in the short and medium term.”Warning about a lack of clarity around seasonal workers’ rights once Britain leaves the EU, he told The Independent: “Picking robots are very much at the trial stage. They are starting to pick strawberries but it will be quite some years before they are a commercial reality.”