Researchers in Nanjing have developed a strawberry-picking robot that solves a long-standing problem in harvesting delicate fruits.
Created by Professor Wang Xiaochan’s team at Nanjing Agricultural University, reports Xinhua, a chinese news agency.
The cart-sized machine uses a camera and robotic arm to locate and pick ripe strawberries in about 20 seconds, with an 84 percent success rate and minimal damage.
Unlike earlier robots that cut stems, leaving sharp remnants that bruise neighboring fruit and require manual trimming, this new design draws inspiration from sea anemones.
A soft, silicone-based pneumatic gripper wraps around the berry without crushing it. The robot then performs a gentle upward tug and a small rotation, snapping the stem cleanly off so no stalk remains. The fruit is ready for packaging without human handling.
Using deep learning, the robot assesses crowding among clustered strawberries and prioritizes those least blocked. It adjusts its grip based on camera feedback, improving grasping success from 66 percent to 84 percent.
The team plans to build a cloud platform to share picking data, allowing farmers to operate the robot with simple commands. Though designed for strawberries, the technology could also be adapted for tomatoes, cherries, and other soft produce, supporting broader agricultural automation.
