Robotic harvesting and pruning in fruit cultivation

Challenge

Fruit cultivation is highly labour-intensive, with harvesting and pruning accounting for the majority of work on orchards. Seasonal labour shortages, rising costs and physically demanding tasks put increasing pressure on fruit growers and technology providers. At the same time, existing automation solutions are often crop-specific, lack flexibility and are not sufficiently mature for real-world deployment across different fruit types.

Project goal

Via this projct (RoboFruit), we aim to accelerate the adoption of robotic harvesting and pruning in fruit cultivation by developing a flexible, mobile robotic solution that can operate across multiple crops. The project combines vision-based monitoring, smart decision-making and advanced end-of-arm tooling for harvesting and pruning, integrated on an autonomous robotic platform. By validating the technology in real cultivation environments, RoboFruit enables companies to reduce labour dependency, increase productivity and co-develop scalable robotic solutions tailored to their crops and operations.