{"id":137560,"date":"2022-03-31T19:03:27","date_gmt":"2022-04-01T00:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/silicone-raspberry-used-to-train-harvesting-robots"},"modified":"2022-03-31T19:03:27","modified_gmt":"2022-04-01T00:03:27","slug":"silicone-raspberry-used-to-train-harvesting-robots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/silicone-raspberry-used-to-train-harvesting-robots","title":{"rendered":"Silicone raspberry used to train harvesting robots"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0Ge4SuX_ALM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Raspberries are the ultimate summer fruit. Famous for their eye-catching scarlet color and distinctive structure, they consist of dozens of fleshy drupelets with a sweet yet slightly acidic pulp. But this delicate structure is also their primary weakness, as it leaves them vulnerable to even the slightest scratch or bruise. Farmers know all too well that raspberries are a difficult fruit to harvest\u2014and that\u2019s reflected in their price tag. But what if robots, equipped with advanced actuators and sensors, could lend a helping hand? Engineers at EPFL\u2019s Computational Robot Design &amp; Fabrication (CREATE) lab have set out to tackle this very challenge.<\/p>\n<p>Sky-high labor costs and shortages of workers cause farmers to lose millions of dollars\u2019 worth of produce each year\u2014and the problem is even more acute when it comes to delicate crops such as <a href=\"https:\/\/techxplore.com\/tags\/raspberries\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">raspberries<\/a>. But for now, there\u2019s no viable alternative to harvesting the fruit by hand. \u201cIt\u2019s an exciting dilemma for us as robotics engineers,\u201d says Josie Hughes, a professor at CREATE. \u201cThe raspberry harvesting season is so short, and the fruit is so valuable, that wasting them simply isn\u2019t an option. What\u2019s more, the cost and logistical challenges of testing different options out in the field are prohibitive. That\u2019s why we decided to run our tests in the lab and develop a replica raspberry for training harvesting robots.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Raspberries are the ultimate summer fruit. Famous for their eye-catching scarlet color and distinctive structure, they consist of dozens of fleshy drupelets with a sweet yet slightly acidic pulp. But this delicate structure is also their primary weakness, as it leaves them vulnerable to even the slightest scratch or bruise. Farmers know all too well [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1506,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}