A U.S. start-up launched by a Silicon Valley research institute is set to provide a solution to the apple industry's ongoing labor shortage issues with the use of vacuum technology.

A team from SRI International, based in Menlo Park, California, has been researching ways to mechanize harvesting and is now working under spin-out company Abundant Robotics to commercialize the technology.

Abundant Robotics CEO Dan Steere explained the team had been partly funded by the Washington Tree Fruit Commission over the last three years, and has now managed to develop a prototype autonomous harvester.

"After we had built up a series of results over several years, last year we got to the point where we felt we had solved enough of the hard problems that it was time to go on and actually make a product," he told www.freshfruitportal.com.

He said that up until now there had been a couple of key challenges that had prevented people from developing automated harvesters, but the Abundant Robotics team had now solved them.

"One of them is the ability to pick the apples without damaging either the fruit or the tree, and the other is to be able to see the apples in all kinds of different conditions," he said.

"We can identify apples, and pick them rapidly without damaging the apple or the tree."

While he could not reveal details of how the specialized and patented technology works, he said vacuuming was being used in a 'unique way' and has produced some very positive results.

'Very succesful' trials have already been carried out both in Washington State and Australia, and the team is now taking the technology to the next stage.

"Last year we decided it was time to move past research and now we’re methodically developing product," he said.

In research you’re solving fundamental problems that you’re not sure can be solved, but you’re trying to prove that they can be.

"When you build product you have to integrate a lot of systems and make sure that you’re building a machine that’s reliable and performs across a range of functions that are required. So we’re now off and running on that process of building a commercial harvester."

Steere hopes to have a product in commercial use in the market within the next two years.

While Abundant Robotics is not yet ready to publish specific recommendations for growers detailing what kind of orchard systems would be ideal for automated harvesting, he said high-density plantings were the 'right path'.

"The trend in apple production has been to move to these trellace-based high-density orchard systems, and those are the types of systems that lend themselves best to automation," he said.

Abundant Robotics recently closed its initial investment round.

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