Grant boost for BerryBot Project

The company will use the funding to lead the development of Alpha 2.0, the next iteration of its raspberry picking robot. Project partners include Performance Projects (PP) and berry grower the Hall Hunter Partnership (HHP).

The BerryBot Project will further develop the robot’s hardware, software and control/vision to enable picking at an enhanced rate.

Alpha has different cameras with different functions; the ‘global’ camera is used for positioning and detecting multiple states of ripeness of each berry in view, whilst the ‘local’ cameras support the final stages of the harvesting.

David Fulton, Fieldwork Robotics CEO, said proprietary software enables the cameras to relay information to fruit picking end effectors on Alpha’s arms.

“Our end effector also validates at point of pick to provide required quality assurance of the berries that are then deposited in the punnet,” he said. “We have filed patents on our end-effector, which includes a soft mechanism and is the core of our IP, and unique to Fieldwork Robotics.”

Fulton continued: “We are able to remove the berry from the peduncle of the bush without damaging the harvested fruit. Subsequently, this has passed stringent quality control requirements for sale in UK and EU supermarkets.”

Fulton added that Alpha has evolved from version 1.1 with an arm that had seven degrees of freedom to version 1.2 that had five degrees of freedom.

“Our most recent funding is being deployed to build Alpha 2.0 that has an ability for four arms to operate independently and simultaneously from picking heights as low as 80cm up to 2m at any one time,” he said.

Alpha 2.0 is being designed to operate up to 20 hours a day across three shifts. Fulton said night picking will become routine and a requirement for growers to reduce wastage and increase efficiency.

“We are exploring alternative lighting techniques and will share more on this capability as we field-test in May,” he said.

This grant award follows a recent £3m+ funding round, which included a £1.5m investment from Elbow Beach Capital and a £1.5m+ Seedrs crowd fundraise.