Robots help farmers pick strawberries

Japanese scientists yesterday introduced a robot that could help farmers pick strawberries and could cut two-thirds of the workload.

With a height of 2m, the robot moves across the tracks between rows of trees. Within 8 seconds, it can pick up a strawberry, AFP said.

The robot will use three cameras to determine which ripe berries are sufficiently ripened before hand picking and putting in the basket. "Based on the color of the strawberry, the robot determines ripeness by observing the two cameras," said Mitsutaka Kurita, a member of Shibuya Seiki, the team that invented the robot.

It can also use images from these two cameras to calculate the distance to the berries to pick. The third camera will then capture a detailed image of the strawberry. This image will be used for the final determination step before moving to cut and put in the basket.

According to the National Food and Agricultural Research Service (NARO), co-development of robots, mulberries is a labor-intensive job. Typically, the number of mulberry growers is 70 times more than the number needed to grow rice, twice as much as that of tomato and cucumber.

This robot can harvest two-thirds of the strawberries in one night, when the mulberry grower is sleeping. Farmers only have to harvest the remaining strawberries that robots have not picked up.

The strawberry picker will be sold early next year for 5 million yen ($ 50,000).

The strawberries are grown all year round in Japan, with prices of at least 500 yen per basket.