Sure, this new fruit-handling robot looks cool, but what can one do with a fruit-handling robot, really? Maybe not much right now-but figuring out how to let robots pick up fruit has some interesting potential.
Farming has become more and more automated, at almost every possible entry point. And yet, still, there are parts that humans can do in a moment and robots find incredibly tricky-one of those parts is handling some ripe fruits, vegetables and spices. Their shapes are unpredictable, they bruise or break easily, and distinguishing them from their surroundings (or their less ripe counterparts) isn’t always easy.
Of course, this new robot from Cambridge Consultants isn’t anywhere near a point where it could do that kind of work in the field (although the manufacturer does point to it as a potential tool in food processing plants). Eventually, though, it and robots like it might be able to inch us closer to fully robotic farms.
