Strawberry Season Is Here! Harvesting Robots Are at the Ready

With strawberry season upon us,  Dogtooth Technologies’ dextrous strawberry harvesting robot with built-in quality inspection for picking supermarket-quality fruit is at the ready. Denso and Certhon have also announced they have started taking orders for their automated cherry truss tomato-picking robot "Artemy" in Europe. Both companies feature smart robotic technology designed to tackle the delicate task of soft produce picking.

 

Dogtooth’s strawberry harvesting robot in action. Image used courtesy of Dogtooth Technologies

 

Soft Robotics in Agriculture

Smart, soft robotics technologies are helping to evolve and refine agricultural practices to remove the problem of labor-intensive tasks and alleviate worker shortage concerns. Soft robotics also enables farm holders to gather data, analyze, and improve their processes to enhance productivity and sustainability. Soft robotics technologies comprise actuators, sensors, and adaptable/pliant structures that allow for sensitive and complex maneuvers as they interact with their environment. 

Soft robotics technologies, such as Denso and Certhon’s Artemy robot, use soft grippers made of flexible materials like silicone or rubber to harvest delicate fruits, such as berries and tomatoes, without bruising them. These technologies save waste while improving product quality. Soft robotics technologies are versatile in design, allowing them to be used for tasks such as plant pruning, crop thinning, and pollination.

Furthermore, soft-handling materials reduce the likelihood of worker injuries and plant damage during day-to-day operations. This type of handling represents a substantial advantage over standard robotic systems. Unlike rigid robots, which struggle to move on uneven terrain, soft robots can adapt to their surroundings, making them suitable for outdoor farms.

 

Artemy uses a (hot water tube-based) running lane and AI to move through cascades of tomatoes and select ripe fruit for picking. Image used courtesy of Denso 

 

Artemy, the Tomato Harvesting Robot

Denso and Certhon’s Artemy is designed to select and pick trusses of cherry tomatoes by cutting the peduncle with scissors. A peduncle is the stem/stalk of the tomato plant, which supports the truss or collection of fruit. The soft bot employs AI to identify tomatoes that are ripe for picking and operates automatically via a running lane. Artemy also employs sensors to safely move between running lanes, avoiding people and obstacles. The robot automatically replaces crates when they are full, moving to the trolley holding empty crates and replacing them all in one go.

Artemy uses replaceable batteries, extending its runtime to boost productivity. The bot also uses a light-emitting diode to detect peduncles and clusters during daytime and nighttime operations when supplemental lighting is used. These features can help reduce the labor burden for farm workers, streamline operations, and maintain productivity. 

Dogtooth’s strawberry-picking robot uses an inspection system to sift out defective strawberries, retaining the supermarket-grade fruit for punnet loading. Image used courtesy of Dogtooth Technologies 

 

Strawberry Harvesting Robots

Dogtooth Technologies is another passenger on the smart robotics fruit-picking train with its fifth-generation strawberry harvesting robots. Dogtooth's robots feature an onboard berry inspection system that images each berry and selects only those that meet supermarket criteria for direct placement into punnets.

Crop growers can get real-time information concerning crop conditions, such as yield and defect rates. Customers can adjust grading and fruit ripeness parameters, weighing the trade-offs between waste, harvest rate, and picking speed. Dogtooth's robots move through each polytunnel or glasshouse section, counting berries as they mature. This approach provides substantial insight into crop conditions and exact 7-14 day production projections using a cloud-based software user interface.