Harvesting soft fruit mechanically represents a huge challenge - each berry needs to be located, even if it's behind a leaf, assessed for ripeness and then harvested and boxed with enormous care to avoid bruising.But recent developments in visual sensor technology, machine learning and autonomous propulsion have brought the goal within reach. A shortage of migrant fruit-pickers is driving demand for robotic alternatives, say strawberry producers. Some of these prototype machines pick, others snip, but all claim to be as good as humans.Robots can operate at all times of the day or night - harvesting during the chillier night hours can dramatically lengthen shelf life and avoid bruising. But developers emphasise the motivation is not to replace migrant labour with cheaper, more efficient robots. In fact, it's not proving easy to replicate the standards that human pickers deliver.
