Fruit picking robots: has their time come?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe recent fruit picking robot developments with an emphasis on corporate activity rather than academic research. It also aims to provide a view on the commercial prospects for these developments. Design/methodology/approach Following a short introduction, this first discusses strawberry and other soft fruit picking robot developments conducted principally by commercial organisations. It then provides similar details of robots for harvesting apples and other hard fruits. This is followed by a discussion and concluding comments. Findings The shortage of seasonal fruit pickers has stimulated the need for automation. Accordingly, a growing community of companies, many founded in the past five years, are developing fruit picking robots. These are aimed at both soft and hard fruits, such as strawberries and apples, respectively, and exploit advanced vision systems, image processing techniques and AI. Some products are already on the market, whereas many more are due for commercial release during the next two years into what is expected to be a highly competitive market. Originality/value This provides details of the emerging fruit picking robot business by describing the products and manufacturing companies.