Never mind the Apple Cup. Washington State University is focused on the apple grip and the apple pick.

Researchers in WSU’s School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering unveiled a low-cost robotic apple-picking arm designed to help offset labor shortages for tasks such as harvesting and pruning, according to a news release Wednesday.

The inflatable arm can see an apple, extend and retract to pick fruit in about 25 seconds (as demonstrated in the video above). Mounted on a metal base and weighing about 50 pounds, the 2-foot-long arm is made of a soft fabric filled with air.

Researchers published their work in the journal Smart Agricultural Technology. The team is collaborating with researchers at the Prosser Research Extension Center and with Manoj Karkee at Cornell University to adapt the arm to an automated moving platform that is also being developed to move through orchards.

Washington state leads the nation in apple and sweet cherry production, contributing more than $2 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product in 2023, according to WSU. Farms across the state employ hundreds of workers annually for orchard tasks such as pollination, pruning, flower thinning and harvesting. But an aging population and a decline in migrant farmworkers have made it harder for growers to meet labor needs during harvest season.

Compared to humans who can pick an apple every three seconds, the robotic arm is still slow. The researchers are refining some of the mechanical components as well as working to improve its rudimentary detection system, which hinders the picking more than the robotic arm’s movement, WSU Insider reported.

Deploying robots in fruit harvesting and other aspects of agriculture is not a new concept. Apple-picking technology is also being developed at Oregon State University, Michigan State University, and elsewhere. WSU says that some robotic harvesting systems can be large, expensive and complex to use in orchards.

“Having this very low-cost, safe robotic platform is ideal for the orchard environment,” said Ryan Dorosh, a PhD candidate and lead author on the work.

The researchers are working with WSU’s Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship team for the intellectual property protection and commercialization of the technology. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation, the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission and tested at Allan Brothers Fruit in Prosser, Washington.

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