Abundant Robotics in California has built an automated apple picker, that uses a vacuum system to suck the fruit straight off of the trees. The robots are robust, fast and gentle when picking apples. These robots are powered by the small tractors that are already being used in fruit farming. Computer vision has been employed to help the robots identify the apples that are ready for harvesting.
These robots pick apples all hours of the day, and they work alongside human workers. It is not expected that the robots will be replacing human labor since careful judgment is still required in the picking of the fruits to minimize damage. At night, the robots are used to pick apples in parts of the tree that are hard to reach.