Robotic Arm Systems and Vision Technologies Across the Raspberry Production Cycle: A Review

Raspberry production remains highly labour-intensive, while most agricultural robotic systems are designed for individual operations, limiting their utilisation across the production season. This review evaluates robotic arm systems and associated vision technologies relevant to operations across the raspberry production cycle, with particular attention to their potential integration into multifunctional robotic platforms. Published studies were reviewed across six thematic areas: cane management, crop monitoring and yield estimation, targeted spraying, harvesting, end-effector solutions, and multifunctional, modular, and reconfigurable robotic platforms. Particular emphasis was placed on robotic system architecture, computer vision and sensing, target detection and localisation, manipulation, control, end-effector design, and reported operational performance. The reviewed literature shows that the greatest progress in raspberry-specific applications has been achieved in fruit detection, maturity assessment, crop monitoring, and harvesting, whereas integrated robotic solutions for pruning and targeted spraying remain limited. Within the reviewed literature, no raspberry-specific robotic arm platform that had been demonstrated across multiple operations of the production cycle was identified. However, the reviewed studies indicate that combining a common mobile platform and robotic arm with adaptable vision systems, control strategies, and interchangeable end-effectors could support broader seasonal use. Future research could therefore focus on integrating these components and validating multifunctional robotic systems under realistic raspberry production conditions.