Robotics firm Wootzano is part of a project that aims to tackle the lack of labour in the UK horticulture industry using technology.
As part of 'Agri-OpenCore', the County Durham-based company is contributing its know-how to part of the £9.13m programme that aims to develop an open development platform - including software and hardware - for robotic crop harvesting. It is hoped the platform will open the door to the creation of commercial robotic systems using tomatoes and strawberries as test cases.
At the moment there is no robotic harvesting system that can match the speed of human picking but Wootzano says its fruit and vegetable packaging system called Avarai has matched human costs for packing fresh produce. The understanding is set to be applied to Agri-OpenCore which is being led by APS Produce - one of the UK's leading suppliers of British tomatoes to the high street.
