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Re:Robots are not very good at picking strawberries yet by Animats on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @03:15AM (#16636150)
Agrobot has a better strawberry picking robot in test. [1] Abundant Robotics has an apple picking robot in test. Not yet in production. Getting close, though.

Robotic weeding is now commercially available. Vision systems target the weeds, skipping the wanted plants. The weed is hit with an overdose of fertilizer, a laser, or just a powered hammer. Deere and Siemens both have machines for this.

It's coming soon. A cell phone has enough compute power for this.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/video/agrobot-automates-the-work-of-berr...

Re:Robots are not very good at picking strawberries yet by Qworg on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @03:49AM (#16636258)
Does Agrobot do well in standard fields? It looks like the testbed is a very fancy raised bed system.

Is the Abundant Robotics robot faster now?

Re:Robots are not very good at picking strawberries yet by jdmichal on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @09:00AM (#16637619)
Strawberries are typically grown in somewhat raised beds, even if it's not as fancy as the pictures I'm seeing with the Agrobot. This is what a typically strawberry field around Plant City, FL looks like:

https://www.adrianasbestrecipes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/...

Re:Robots are not very good at picking strawberries yet by Qworg on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @02:04PM (#16640758)
Certainly! I lived in Plant City for about 3 years.

That's still a nice design - many are just mounded earth.

Re:Robots are not very good at picking strawberries yet by jdmichal on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @04:14PM (#16641915)
Ah, apologies then. You probably know more about it than I do. I just show up for the Strawberry Festival every year!