Strawberry picking robot could harvest enough fruit for Wimbledon

Developed by Belgian robotics specialist Octinion the so-called ‘Rubion’ robot uses a combination of smart photonics technology and an innovative clasping mechanism to pick up 360kg of strawberries each day. According to the firm this compares to 50kg a day for a productive human picker.

Octinion claims that a fleet of just 14 of the robots would take less than seven days to pick and package all strawberries needed for Wimbledon.

Rubion uses photonic sensors to detect the wavelengths of light, or the ‘signatures’ given off from a ripe, red strawberry according to a pre-programmed set of characteristics the RGB camera has built into the ‘eye’ of the robot.

It then uses a patented soft-touch gripper to pick strawberries from below and sort the fruits by size or weight and pack into punnets as it goes along.

Commenting on the technology Octinion CTO Dr Jan Anthonis said: “Just like you know what a plump, juicy red strawberry looks like, Rubion can do this mathematically, looking for the infrared spectroscopic heat signatures given off from a perfect fruit, getting a perfect ‘hit’ every time.”