AI-powered robot learns how to harvest tomatoes more efficiently

Farm labor shortages are pushing agriculture toward greater automation, especially when it comes to harvesting. But not all crops are easy for machines to handle. Tomatoes, for example, grow in clusters, which means a robot must carefully select ripe fruit while leaving unripe ones untouched. This requires precise control and smart decision-making. To tackle this challenge, Assistant Professor Takuya Fujinaga of Osaka Metropolitan University's Graduate School of Engineering developed a system that trains robots to assess how easy each tomato is to harvest before attempting to pick it.