Belgian strawberry picking robot outshines humans
Together with the Research Centre Hoogstraten, the Belgian company Octinion has designed a picking robot for strawberries. The robot was first introduced to the world during the biannual Strawberry Fair in Hoogstraten.
Thanks to a mechanical arm, the robot can harvest strawberries without damaging them. Moreover, the machine is capable of avoiding the stalk. That is a significant improvement compared to the Japanese picking robot. Spain also has a robot, but it literally snatches the strawberries off the plant. A method that works in Spain, as its strawberries are quite large.
The refined picking robot has several advantages over humans: "Even the best picker will not be able to compete with the robot, which works at a constant speed, day and night", Tom Coen, CEO of Octinion tells us. "With a soft rubber 3D printed arm, the robot picks 24 kilos of strawberries per hour, while a person can harvest 12 to 20 kilos within that same time period."
Yet pickers don't have to fear for their jobs. Manpower is still needed to pick the strawberries the robot has missed. Furthermore, the arrival of the Belgian picking robot can improve the strawberry production in certain countries. For example the United Kingdom currently faces a shortage of pickers, putting the strawberry industry at risk of extinction.
This year the Research Centre Hoogstraten had the honour of hosting the tenth Mechanisation and Demonstration Fair Strawberry. Over 800 growers could become acquainted with the machine for the first time. Next year a beta version of the picking robot will be deployed at a few chosen pickers and if everything goes well, the robot will enter the market in 2018.