Watch This AI Robot Pick Peppers With A Tiny Saw

Sweeper is a EU-backed pepper-picking robot meant to combat farming labor shortages. Researchers expect to have a commercial version available in three to five years.

Farming worker shortages are getting worse. In a survey by the California Farm Bureau Federation last year, 55 percent of the 762 farmers surveyed said they had experienced employee shortages. That's why researchers are now trying to tackle this problem with robots.

Researchers from Europe and Israel have built a robot that can pick ripe peppers in a greenhouse. The prototype, called Sweeper, is backed by the European Union as part of its Horizon 2020 innovation program.

To do its job, Sweeper uses a camera that can recognize the color of a pepper. Computer vision then helps the robot decide if the fruit is ripe for picking. If it is, Sweeper uses a small razor to cut the stem before catching the fruit in its "claws" and dropping it into a collection basket below.

To pick a single pepper takes about 24 seconds, though the researchers say they purposefully slowed down the robot's movements for safety reasons. Sweeper is also equipped with LED lights so that it can work regardless of the time of day, for about 20 hours/day. Still, the robot is far from perfect, with only 61 percent accuracy in picking ripe fruit.

Sweeper is not the only harvesting robot out there. Argobot is testing a machine that picks strawberries, Green Robot Machinery has a cotton-picking robot and Israeli start-up MetroMotion is working on a tomato-picking bot.

According to Market Research Engine, the agricultural robots market is expected to reach $75 billion by 2025. The creators of Sweeper hope the robot will not only help counteract the farming labor shortage, but also reduce food spoilage. Though Sweeper still needs some work, the team expects to have a commercial version available in three to five years.

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Watch This AI Robot Pick Peppers With A Tiny Saw

[aaronwilliams]

Build a wall keep the robots out make Boston Dynamics pay for it

[chain-wallet]

what. is. my. purpose.
you pick peppers
oh. god.

[mcgeebag]

Lazy robot can't even work 24 hours a day!

[Jennyoy]

The most important thing is to make the cost of the robots affordable for the farmers.

[_MintArcade]

Soon it'll not be immigrants that you'll be worrying about, lol

[Belofsky]

People need to realize that these robots are replacing TASKS. Thus will enable humans to focus on more important jobs that will benefit society and advance our species, as opposed to spending it picking pepper.

[freeatlast]

For the people below complaining about lost jobs. Shut up, sit back, have a beer and let the robots do all the work. They can grow and harvest the food then we eat it. No job necessary.

[yonoume]

Wonderful machine, use in assembly line, now in agriculture, hopefully it become more knowledgable in fruit detection...

[marlmyster]

There goes the Job I didn't want!...
These darn Robots need to be deported.

[hussainbharmal]

Are they planning to replace humans in each and every work..

[seasong]

It's amazing to see how far pepper technology has come!

[themoneymindset]

The background music makes this video so interesting

[raghavendravaspula]

Now it may be slower but once if it learns how to pick it will master the task.

[yonatanmakara]

Nice. This will help with food shortage and labor shortage.

[shiuandai]

i hope this will be common to use in agricultural field soon.

[billyfakersonton]

Researchers hope it will be an viable alternative to wage increases

[slmeucalesa]

Tony Stark's new toy.... .... Pepper Bots.

[Deontjie]

61% success rate with yellow peppers. 0, 3% success rate with green peppers?

[jch]

I need a robot assistant for errands and stuff like going to the store and buying groceries, mailing packages and other stuff I don't want to do.

Robotics industry is going to be gigantic in the future. To any kid who is good at creative engineering and math, this is your wheelhouse and ticket right here.