Cornell announced on September 3 that a four-year, $7.5 million USDA grant will support a Center of Excellence for Orchard Robotics. The collaboration addresses demanding orchard tasks including pollination, fruit thinning, apple harvesting and inter-row weeding.
Manoj Karkee at Cornell leads the effort with Washington State University’s Matthew Whiting. Academic partners, growers and Fresh Fruit Robotics are contributing expertise, with additional support directed toward autonomous movement. The program also includes orchard digital twins, AI-based canopy perception and analysis of the economic and social factors that influence adoption.
A central challenge is utilization: a costly machine limited to a short harvest period may be difficult for growers to justify. The team is therefore exploring how robots could contribute across multiple seasonal tasks. The announcement establishes funding and research goals; it does not report a finished autonomous platform or independently validated commercial performance.
