Apple harvesting robot a Victorian engineering winner

Monash University’s apple harvesting robot was one of the winners at the 2023 Engineers Australia Excellence Awards – People & Projects Victoria, announced on 6 September.

“The Engineers Australia Excellence Awards spotlight the best in engineering innovation and highlight how essential engineers are to our everyday lives,” said Alesha Printz, Engineers Australia GM Victoria.

“It’s our way of putting the best engineering work in the limelight, setting the bar high, and inspiring what’s next for our profession.”

The 2023 Engineers Australia Excellence award for the Victorian Project of the Year went to the Monash Apple Retrieving System (MARS) apple harvesting robot.

MARS addresses some of the apple industry’s challenges by offering a solution that minimises manual labour dependency, countering labour shortages and minimising occupational health and safety concerns.

The robot’s ‘soft gripper’ technology coupled with its vision system is designed to detect and pick ripe fruit.

The system has gained recognition within the fruit-growing sector, and has potential for other fruit applications for the orchard industry.

The Engineers Australia Excellence Awards seek to recognise and reward outstanding achievement in engineering. Victorian winners will now represent their division at the national awards, which will be held in Melbourne on 29 November.