For those who missed yesterday's field meeting, the following is a short summary of the presentation of a robotic harvesting machine for strawberries.

The machine, called "Agrobot", is the creation of a research group in Spain headed by Engineer Juan Bravo, who is seen driving the machine in several pictures below.

Rather than futilely attempt to match the profound and unique complexity of the human hand, the principle of the "Agrobot" is instead a construction of visualization technology which guides a rubber lined basket to the red, ripened strawberry fruit and removes it in a lifting motion from the pedicel with a small round razor buttoned to one side of the basket (photo 2 below).  The picked fruit is then deposited on a conveyer belt, which carries it up to a worker seated at the front of the "Agrobot" for quality inspection and placement in a container, be it a clamshell, crate or bucket.

There are a series of arms holding the harvest baskets on either side of the machine to enable picking on both sides of the bed.  Much has been of the fact that these arms, having a modular design, are replaceable in case of damage or malfunction.  The unit containing the arm and its automated guide snaps easily out to make room for an identical unit, causing minimal delay in the progress of harvest.

Nice video by Luis Macario posted on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm3WS5y3kCk&feature=youtu.be

While the "Agrobot" automated harvester is being seen as technology's response to the strawberry industry's increasing problems obtaining harvest labor, many challenges remain nevertheless.  For one, the varieties currently in use on the Central Coast produce many fruit in one cluster, which the machine has difficulty distinguishing from one another.  Secondly, as the reader can see from picture number three below, the strawberry field must be radically reshaped to accommodate the machine, including farming strawberries in single rows (reducing plant count and subsequently  lowering yield per acre) and raising the beds substantially.  Third, the machine cannot think for itself and will not find fruit behind foliage or sequestered within the canopy of the plant.

At any rate, the "Agrobot" is a remarkable invention and worthy of a look and consideration by those who haven't seen it yet.