Soft-Handed Fruit Picking Robots

You no longer need to question what good a robot that can handle a fish can do. One practical application of this field of soft robots is fruit picking, which is a result of the concept of a very gentle robot. Fruit harvesting has typically been a controlled human activity. Although many crops may be harvested by machines, some require a human touch because earlier machines were just too harsh. For a machine to pick, fruits like raspberries have to be extremely delicate. That's not the situation anymore.

Back in 2017, Ocado showed off robot hands that were soft enough to pick up foods that readily bruised, such tomatoes or raspberries. These would be utilized to pick consumer orders in the online grocer's warehouse. The robot hand's grasp is controlled by air pressure, and when linked with AI, the robots could view produce, assess its freshness, and more as they picked orders. A robot raspberry picker working in the field harvests around one kilogram of fruit every hour using its four arms, sensors, and soft plastic grippers. That's not much, but they intend to treble it very soon.