Formula One engineering in Norfolk fruit farm robotics trial

The small, but strong, remote-controlled vehicle was tested for its potential to fetch and carry berries picked at Place UK in Tunstead, near North Walsham.

It was designed by Silverstone-based engineering firm Performance Projects, which specialises in hi-tech custom vehicles and works with Formula One and Le Mans motorsport teams.

Technical director Terence Goad said the GoFAR platform - which can be configured for purposes including mobile robotics - is the vehicular part of an agri-tech partnership with the University of Lincoln, which is working on automation and crop sensing technologies.

The eventual goal is a time-saving autonomous robot which could increase the labour-efficiency of berry production.

Mr Goad said: "At the moment the GoFAR is just fetching and delivering stuff around the farm, which allows these robotics companies to concentrate on the clever stuff, the AI [artificial intelligence] and crop recognition.

"When you are picking fruit there is a trolley with typically four crates on it which you fill  with punnets and walk them over to the collection station. That is an appreciable amount of dead time lost.

"The efficiency comes when you have an autonomous machine to do the gophering from the pickers to the picking station. Then everyone is happy - the farmers are more efficient, and the pickers can spend more time picking and get their bonuses."

Pieter van Egmond, managing director at Norfolk fruit growers Place UK (Image: Sarah Lucy Brown)

Place UK managing director Pieter van Egmond said the firm is "keen to embrace technology" for time-consuming manual tasks.

"We have got really highly-skilled fruit pickers, so the robot as it stands is not going to replace people, but it will complement the human input," he said.

"There is no skill required to take a tray of fruit from the row to the picking station, so using machines like this could allow people to spend more time doing what they are best at."