Robot hand could harvest blackberries better than humans

Summary

Robot Hand Could Harvest Blackberries Better Than Humans July 21, 2025 Photo by Chieko Hara Mechanical engineer Anthony Gunderman holds a prototype of the robotic gripper for picking blackberries. Fresh, frozen and processed berries are a multi-billion-dollar business in America. In Arkansas alone, fresh-market blackberries contribute $24.3 million each year to the state’s economy. But these delicate blackberries sold in clamshells at supermarkets must be picked by hand, and farm labor has been limited in recent years. A new berry-picking robot gripper developed at the U of A could give growers a high-tech replacement for limited labor availability. The U.S patent was issued in April to the U of A for the invention “Soft Robotic Gripper for Berry Harvesting.” Technology Ventures, part of the Division of Research and Innovation, secured the patent. The device was developed by Anthony Gunderman, at the time a Ph.D. student and now an assistant professor in U of A’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, with Yue Chen, a former U of A professor now at Georgia Tech, and Jeremy Collins, then a U of A undergraduate engineering student. Inspired by Nature The robotic gripper has three “fingers,” each made of a soft, pliable material. When a “tendon” — in this case a guitar string — is pulled, the fingers retract. Building robots from pliable materials is known as soft robotics, an approach first used in the 1960s. When designing soft robots, developers often look to nature for models, a process known as biomimicry. For the berry-picking hand, the researchers were inspired by the design of a tulip. The robotic gripper can harvest delicate blackberries. (Illustration colorized by Ross Maute based on a photo by Anthony Gunderman) “I was inspired by the way a tulip flower opens and closes when the sunlight hits it,” Gunderman said. On the tip of each finger is a force sensor, which makes sure the gripper can pluck the berry without crushing it. Roughly handled blackberries can ...