Four-legged agronomist robot Frutas AI begins work on farms

Frutas AI has developed a robot dog designed to collect data on crop conditions, which has already begun operating in agricultural fields. Kedar Iyer, CEO of Frutas AI, a company specializing in agricultural robotics, spoke about the robot’s features and performance.

According to Iyer, the challenges currently facing agriculture require automated solutions, yet the sector has historically been one of the slowest to adopt robotic technologies.

The four-legged agronomist robot developed by the company autonomously navigates fields, conducts crop inventories, and selectively inspects plants up to 1.5 meters tall, such as blueberries. It can independently move along orchard rows, monitoring each plant in real time.

The robotic assistant collects data on yields and fruit size, identifies rows that require human attention, learns crop-specific growing patterns, and returns to its base station for recharging on its own. Farmers can allow the robot to operate autonomously within designated areas or control it via a mobile app to track progress and adjust routes if needed. It can also function as an assistant, following instructions from farm managers and selectively inspecting rows.

The robot moves using a biomechanical gait. As Iyer explained, it calculates the stability of each step in milliseconds, allowing it to traverse uneven or muddy terrain. It also employs computer vision models capable of capturing three-dimensional data on each plant and processing information on hundreds of plants within minutes — a task that would take humans hours to complete manually.

The robot was first tested on Chilean vineyards in September 2025. According to Iyer, the trials reduced sorting errors by 95%, improved consistency in fruit size assessment, and achieved 90% accuracy in data related to fruit uniformity, size, and color. While the robot can handle gentle slopes and small obstacles, it requires clear paths and stable connectivity to upload data, typically during recharging every four hours. Despite these limitations, Frutas AI considers them minor trade-offs for a robot that becomes increasingly autonomous and better adapted to the unique needs of each farm with every season.

Tags: agriculture robots