A new version of the world’s first raspberry-picking robot, a four-armed machine powered by artificial intelligence and able to do the job at the speed and effectiveness of a human, is to be employed on farms in the UK, Australia and Portugal over the coming 12 months.
The developers claim that Fieldworker 1, nicknamed Robocrop, can detect more accurately than previous models whether a berry is ripe, and can pick fruit faster because its grippers have greater reach and flexibility.
Developed in less than a year by Fieldwork Robotics, a spinout from the University of Plymouth, the machine is being already being trialled at berry farms in England and Portugal; Australian tests will begin soon.
The British Berry Growers group has warned that two-fifths of growers of strawberries and raspberries could go out of business by the end of 2026 because of rising costs and supermarkets squeezing supplier prices. If problems are not tackled, the industry body has warned of “a future massive reduction in the supply of fresh British berries”.
The latest version of Robocrop will soon be going to Australia for further field testing at Costa Group, one of the country’s biggest fruit and vegetable growers. Raspberries are harvested in Australia almost the entire year, and farms are dealing with a rise in the national minimum wage. Following further modifications, the final version of the robot is expected to be sold or leased to growers late next year, with plans to manufacture up to 24. Fieldwork Robotics is in talks to sell the machine to farms in the UK, Portugal, Australia and California.
Robocrop is the brainchild of Martin Stølen, who founded Fieldwork Robotics in 2016 when he lectured in robotics at Plymouth University and is the company’s chief science officer. “From our first ever model back in 2016, we have made huge progress in the development of our technology,” said Stølen.
Supported by two grants from Innovate UK worth a combined £1.9bn, the redesigned model is designed to find ripe fruit. “It has superhuman vision capabilities, and what we’re doing with that is detecting the spectral frequency of the state of berry ripeness”, said David Fulton, chief executive of Fieldwork Robotics. “Depending on the state of the berry ripeness, it emits a particular spectral range that allows us to get improved accuracy.”
A camera detects berries, then the arms move towards them, and two further cameras at the end of each arm triangulate the exact position. Finally, a cup with a soft, inflatable membrane moves up to pull ripe fruit off the bush.
“You have this pelican mouth, which holds up to three berries, and it’s very similar to a human – a human will typically pick three berries at a time – without the dirty hands,” said Fulton.
Moving along rows of bushes, the wheeled machine’s four arms pick berries simultaneously and drop them into punnets, ready to be transported to supermarkets. The robot, close to 2m tall, can now harvest between 150 and 300 berries (more than 2kb) an hour – the same rate as a human picker – but can run day and night.
Fieldwork Robotics is in the early stages of looking at adapting its machines to pick other soft fruit such as blackberries.
Nick Marston, chairman of British Berry Growers, cautioned: “It is a complex sector, and we are currently far off robots replacing skilled pickers – so we need to ensure that we have access to the picking labour we need until that technology is working well.”
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