Review of smart robots for fruit and vegetable picking in agriculture

The fruit and vegetable picking has posed a great challenge on the production and markets during the harvest season. Manual picking cannot fully meet the rapid requirements of each market, mainly due to the high labor-intensive and time-consuming tasks, even the aging and shortage of agricultural labor force in recent years. Alternatively, smart robotics can be an efficient solution to increase the planting areas for the markets in combination with changes in cultivation, preservation, and processing technology. However, some improvements still need to be performed on these picking robots. To document the progress in and current status of this field, this study performed a bibliometric analysis. This analysis evaluated the current performance characteristics of various fruit and vegetable picking robots for better prospects in the future. Five perspectives were proposed covering the robotic arms, end effectors, vision systems, picking environments, and picking performance for the large-scale mechanized production of fruits and vegetables in modern agriculture. The current problems of fruit and vegetable picking robots were summarized. Finally, the outlook of the fruit and vegetable picking robots prospected from four aspects: structured environment for fruit planting, the algorithm of recognition and positioning, picking efficiency, and cost-saving picking robots. This study comprehensively assesses the current research status, thus helping researchers steer their projects or locate potential collaborators.