Dec 3 2010
Researchers at the National Agricultural and Food Research Organization, Japan, have developed a new strawberry-picking robot. It can pick each ripe berry from the vine by accurately identifying the color of the ripe fruit.
Strawberry-Picking Robot
The robot features two cameras, which enables it to precisely determine the location of every fruit in three dimensions. The robot will pluck only the 80% red colored strawberries. Further, it can be customized for picking other types of fruits or even vegetables.
Presently, researchers are performing field-experiments to determine if this robot is better than humans in terms of plucking berries. The robot picks each berry in 9 seconds and it can bring down the harvesting times by around 40%.
Source: http://www.naro.affrc.go.jp