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BriefROBOTICS

AI-Coordinated Harvesting Robot Swarm HarvestSwarm Deployed in Japan Strawberry Fields: Picking Efficiency 5x That of Human Workers

Japan's Spread deploys HarvestSwarm — 30 micro picking robots using AI vision to assess strawberry ripeness, achieving 5x human picking efficiency with damage rates below 2%.

On July 1, 2029, Japan's largest vertical farm operator Spread officially deployed HarvestSwarm at its Kyoto strawberry farm. The swarm of 30 small picking robots, coordinated by an AI vision system, completes ripeness assessment and harvesting at 150 kilograms per hour total — five times faster than manual picking on equivalent acreage.

Each HarvestSwarm robot weighs 3.5 kilograms and is equipped with binocular depth cameras and flexible grippers. The AI vision system assesses sugar content and ripeness through near-infrared spectral analysis, picking only fruits meeting standards. The flexible grippers mimic human finger tactile feedback, keeping picking damage rates below 2% — better than the 3-5% of manual picking.

"The average age of Japan's agricultural workforce is over 68, and strawberry harvesting is one of the most labor-intensive operations," said Spread CTO Kazuki Yamamoto. "HarvestSwarm doesn't replace farmers — it fills an inevitable labor gap."

The 30 robots autonomously coordinate picking zone allocation through swarm intelligence algorithms, avoiding repeated operations and collisions. The system also records each strawberry's position and ripeness, providing data support for the next picking round.