October 1, 2013

Japanese robot recognizes and plucks ripe strawberries

by Gavril Mankoo

Bringing aboard a hard-working farmhand isn’t all that easy these days, with young folk heading towards metropolitan areas to look for jobs. Well, who needs them when robots could do the job for you! For those who don’t know the nitty-gritty of strawberry farming, these deliciously seductive red fruits need to be picked at just the right time to serve their purpose. Strawberry farming requires 70 times the input that growing rice requires. Simply put, strawberry farming isn’t easy. A bunch of brainiacs from Japan seem to have known this all along and have developed a two-meter-tall robot that picks strawberries while the farmer lazes away!


The robot uses three cameras to determine which strawberries are ready to pick. It then uses an arm to snip the strawberry and place it in a basket. The robot calculates the degree of ripeness from the color of the strawberry and is capable of picking a fruit every eight seconds! The robot will go on sale from 2014 and will be priced at about $50,800 and upwards.

[Via – Japantoday]