Modern farms are increasingly automated—from GPS-controlled combine harvesters to machines that shake apples from trees. One task, though, seems stubbornly resistant to being ceded to robots: picking ...

In the agricultural sector, labor shortages are increasing the need for automated harvesting using robots. However, some fruits, like tomatoes, are tricky to harvest. Tomatoes typically bear fruit in ...

Tomato greenhouses are becoming test beds for a new kind of farm worker, one that does not just grab every red fruit in sight but pauses to decide which individual tomato is worth picking. Instead of ...

Amazon is investing billions of dollars in robots to make its e-commerce business more efficient and profitable. This huge initiative started out a lot smaller. A decade ago, the company launched a ...

As The BBC reports, this year’s competition has been viewed as a much greater success than 2015’s inaugural event. Amazon hosts the contest to help it realize new technologies that could be put to use ...

The left image shows the tomato-picking robot and camera. The right image shows a ‘robot-eye view’ of the tomatoes. Red represents mature fruits, green indicates immature fruits, and blue indicates ...

Tomato vines can look calm from a distance. Up close, they feel like a crowded maze. Fruit hangs in clusters. Stems twist in odd angles. Leaves hide what you need to see. For farmers facing labor ...