ESSEX University has won a national award for its robotics research which saw a robot pick Wilkin and Sons’ world-famous strawberries.
The university launched a research project which harnesses the power of robotics and AI to automate repetitive, labour-intensive tasks in farms facing severe labour shortage, while increasing yield, minimising wastage, carbon footprint and sustaining local production.
A key aspect of the work has been the creation of deployable low-cost AgriRobotics, which can adapt to different environments, tasks and crop cycles.
One robot, which cost around £20,000 to build, was designed to pick strawberries at Wilkin and Sons' Tiptree farm, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify, pick and package ripe strawberries in seconds.
The Sustainable smArt Robotic Agriculture (SARA) project has won the Best Research Project (Industry Collaboration) at the 2026 UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) AI & Robotics Research Awards.
The award citation stated: “The SARA project harnesses robotics and AI to address three critical societal challenges: food security, labour security and climate/sustainability. The research demonstrates deep co-creation with industry, collaborating with innovative and disruptive growers.”
It added: “This sustained industry collaboration has produced deployable low-cost AgriRobotics automation and demonstrated adaptability across different crops, tasks and growing environments.”
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Last year, the SARA project enjoyed success at the UKRI AI & Robotics Research Awards, where it won the Best Demonstration category.
The event was aligned with UKRI’s announcement of a £52 million set of competitions for Robotics Adoption Hubs, and the team delivered a live, on-stage strawberry-harvesting demonstration.
The plan is to build five strawberry-picking robots by 2027, each smaller and less expensive than its predecessor.
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