AI-Powered Robots: A Fruit Farmer's New Best Friend

After our Editor in Chief covered the ‘Soft Sensor Prosthetics Can Help Rebuild Lives’ story, I started thinking of how and to what extent robots can become more human-like, and when will it ever stop? Let’s talk about agricultural robots.

Up to this point, this news has emerged.

New AI-powered agricultural robots are starting to contribute to humans’ lives by integrating robotic features that now assist farmers. Their robots’ hands have become gentle enough to pick blackberries directly from the trees.

So, now AI powered robots are equipped with advanced computer vision and machine learning algorithms on how they can identify the ripe fruit with extreme precision and care without damaging the fruit or the trees.

Why Blackberries?

They’re sensitive and delicate and can be easily damaged. So, robots can handle it by minimizing the damage and waste. They can overcome the complex environments blackberries grow in, like thorny bushes and navigate easily in between the complexity smoothly.

When harvesting manually, time and energy are consumed intensively. Robots can automate this intensive process and improve the efficiency of harvesting.

Nobody can neglect the love every human being has for blackberries. I’ve never heard of a single person I’ve met who doesn’t like blackberries. It’s a market for all, vegetarians, vegans, pollotarians(someone who only eats chicken), and not to forget meat and chicken lovers. Thus, AI robots can help meet the growing demand for them.

Spanish company Agrobot, American companies like HarvestCroo Robotics and Abundant Robotics are developing and investing in the AI-powered robots to harvest blackberries.

Three fingers to Hold the Berries!

A group of researchers in Arkansas and Georgia teamed up back in 2020 to create this robot. They were curious enough to know how much force it takes to pick the berries and how many fingers are required.

The data revealed that humans use just three fingers when picking and apply approximately 0.5 newtons of force.

“Utilizing these findings, Chen and his graduate student, Anthony Gunderman, designed a robotic system that picks berries gently enough to prevent damage 95% of the time, a rate higher than most human pickers achieve. This three-fingered ‘hand’ uses a guitar string as a tendon to grab, stabilize and harvest each berry,” according to Agriculture Dive.

Changing the Game to Surgical Precision

While writing the fun facts about the blackberry’s sensitivity and how the robotic hand can handle and not squish them, I started thinking of the high level of control and the power to control such delicacy. It then can be used for the sake of human organs, like while conducting super sensitive and risky surgeries. But the thing is that it needs to have appropriate software and send signals to control the movements of the robotic arms and hands in the correct manner.

Trust me, AI-robots don’t hold any grudges against strawberries or raspberries. Robotics and AI are advancing to start harvesting a wider variety of fruits and revolutionizing the farming journey in general.

Just wait and watch!

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