FFRobotics

FFRobotics is an Israeli agtech company that develops a fully automated fresh fruit harvester. The company is based in Emek Hefer, Israel. Its FFRobot combines artificial intelligence, image processing and robotic control to pick fruit in a way that copies human hand picking. The company describes the design as patented.

The FFRobot harvester

• Fruit identification: software sorts fruit by the grower's criteria and separates usable produce from damaged, diseased and unripe fruit.
• Robotic control: runs on the Robot Operating System with precise arm movements.
• Multi-fruit design: the site says the harvester can be modified for different fresh fruit across seasons.
• Data collection: records fruit picked per tree, acre and orchard.

Labour context

The company states that apple harvesting in the United States depends entirely on manual seasonal workers, whose numbers are falling as older pickers retire and younger people avoid farm work. It says the FFRobot can supplement, reduce or replace human pickers, and it claims faster premium harvests than hand picking. The project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme. The team is led by Avi Kahani as co-founder and chief executive, with Yoav Koster also named on the team page. The site lists appearances at the International Fruit Tree Association conference in 2017, the AG/SUM AgriTech Summit in 2017 and Fruit Logistica in Berlin in 2019.

Key facts

• Based in: Emek Hefer, Israel
• Products: FFRobot fresh fruit harvester
• Markets: Fresh fruit growers, with a focus on apple orchards