Project R-16709

Titel: Robotic Harvesting and Pruning in Fruit Orchards (ROBOFRUIT_IRVA). (Research)

Robotic automation in fruit orchards has become an active research area within precision agriculture, driven by rising labor costs, seasonal labor shortages, and the need for more efficient crop management. Introducing automation and robotics in the fruit cultivation sector is an important way forward to ensure the future of local fruit cultivation. Since pruning and harvesting are among the most labor-intensive tasks in fruit production, the ROBOFRUIT_IRVA project focuses on these orchard cultivation tasks. The project targets the development and validation of a multi-functional robotic platform capable of pruning trees and harvesting fruit in orchards, investigating three different cultivations: (1) pome fruit (apples and pears), (2) cherries, and (3) grapes. The envisaged robotic solution will integrate a mobile robotic platform equipped with an 8-DOF robotic system combining a gantry and manipulator, autonomous localisation and navigation in orchards, vision-based tree monitoring for fruit and branch detection and reconstruction, and adaptive robotic skills and related tooling for robust robotic pruning and harvesting. The ROBOFRUIT industrial consortium covers the entire value chain of fruit cultivation in Flanders, including two agritech companies, a robot integrator, three farmers representing different fruit cultivations, and pcfruit. Beyond the targeted cultivations, the developed technologies offer clear potential for later extension towards other crops, such as apricots, blueberries, and red berries.

01 October 2026 - 30 September 2028