Panasonic looking at trial sales of tomato-harvesting robot

Panasonic Corp. will begin selling on a trial basis in about 2019 tomato-harvesting robots, a product prompted by a shortage of farmers and an aging agricultural population in Japan, a company official said Tuesday. The equipment is being developed under a government-sponsored national project to use technology to make Japanese farm products competitive in cost with overseas produce after tariffs on most imported goods are removed under the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal. The robot will determine if a tomato is ripe enough to pick by analyzing its color via an advanced camera and sensor equipment. Utilizing information technology, Panasonic also plans to develop a system that can automatically control the temperature and humidity in a greenhouse depending on the state of vegetables growing there. It also plans to develop a device to check the quality of tomatoes for shipment.