Press "Enter" to skip to content

Korean Robots Coming to Pick Your Apples

Bothered by all those immigrants who keep food on your table by harvesting America’s crops? Don’t worry—the Koreans will replace those apple-pickers with robots:

A system of robots that harvest and transport crops on their own without human assistance has been developed for use in agricultural facilities such as smart farms.

The research team under Choi Tae-yong, principal researcher at the AI Robot Research Division’s Department of Robotics and Mechatronics of the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials, an institution under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Science and ICT, has developed a multiple-robot system for harvesting crops.

This technology can be used to help at agricultural sites where there is a noticeable shortage of manpower by harvesting crops through an automated system. This system also includes robots that use autonomous driving technology to then transport the harvested crops to loading docks.

KIMM’s new multiple-robot system for harvesting horticultural crops consists of harvesting robots and transfer robots. This technology is expected to help solve difficulties at agricultural sites, which are facing severe labor shortages recently, resulting in the inability to harvest crops after they have been farmed. By fully automating the harvesting and transporting processes of the entire farming facility, this technology demonstrates the possibility of unmanning not only harvesting, but also various other labor-intensive tasks at agricultural sites [Korean National Research Council of Science and Technology, “Team Develops a System of Robots That Use Teamwork to Pick Fruit and Transport It Autonomously,” Techxplore, 2023.03.16].

Robot harvesters and milkers, self-driving tractors… pretty soon, South Dakota won’t have to worry about recruiting immigrants to solve the chronic workforce shortage. The state will be one giant food factory with machines rolling all by themselves through the corn and cowpens and along the county roads, supervised remotely by corporate employees who live some place warm where their kids don’t get ten snow days a year.

4 Comments

  1. Mark Anderson 2023-03-17 09:40

    Come on, you need those snow days to learn geography and varied strategies on the roll of the dice. How can you ever hold Kamchatka without that.

  2. Arlo Blundt 2023-03-17 15:29

    Kamchatka: Gateway to Alaska, the key to holding a foothold in North America.

  3. e platypus onion 2023-03-18 08:55

    Better get them robots here in early October before the birds and insects drill holes in all my Connell Red apples. They are a winter type apple and get decent sized and are great to bake stuff with. Not fun to pick several with wasps in the holes, or lady bugs for that matter.

  4. grudznick 2023-03-18 11:11

    You seem to be trying to make this sound like a bad thing, Mr. H.

Comments are closed.