Wimbledon Ready: Robot Strawberry Pickers

Rubion Strawberry Picking Robots

Source:  Octinion's Rubion Robot

Launched to Coincide with Wimbledon's Famous Berry Consumption

Belgium based R&D company Octinion has developed the world's first strawberry picking robot.  Their Rubion robot relies on photonic sensors and a unique soft touch gripper to select and pick ripe strawberries as safely as a human.  They launched the Rubion, which has been five years under development, to coincide with the famous consumption of strawberries at Wimbledon.  They say it would take 14 of their robots less than 7 days to pick and package all of the strawberries needed for the Wimbledon crowds.

Fully Autonomous, Spots Ripe Fruit and Picks

The soft fruit picking robot navigates the strawberry plants, picks ripe ones and places them in containers.  It's equipped with photonic sensors that detect the light that bounces off ripe strawberries.  It has a patented, soft touch gripper that gently plucks the berries off the stem without damaging them.  It's designed to work with raised strawberry beds.  The developers say it meets an important need: a lack of workers to harvest the berries.  They add it results in quality strawberries for consumer.