Compact S9000 vs B8 Harvester
Two harvesting machines, one verified table. Every figure below is sourced and dated; vendor claims are labelled and kept apart from independent results.
Dutch selective white-asparagus harvesting robot from AvL Motion (Westerbeek, NL) — a diesel-electric, self-propelled platform that uses optical RGB/AI plus underground spear detection across 12 rotating harvest modules to locate and cut ripe stalks in the row. Vendor marketing repeatedly calls it "autonomous", but the manufacturer's own spec table and FAQ both confirm one operator must be present in the field to direct the robot via remote control and collect the harvested spears — so it is classified here as assisted, not autonomous. Second- generation model, in commercial development since 2017 and launched 2021; the manufacturer's own product page is live and actively soliciting demo requests as of July 2026.
Best for: White-asparagus growers farming above the manufacturer's own stated profitability threshold (roughly 10 ha) who want to cut peak-season hand-picking labour while keeping one on-site operator directing the robot through each row.US (Tampa/Plant City, FL) autonomous strawberry harvester — 16 independently working picking robots on a wide self-propelled chassis span six beds (picking the middle four), using stereo/AI vision to identify ripe fruit and soft clamp-and-cut end effectors to pick without hand contact. Harvest CROO offers it as a harvesting service (lease + operations), not equipment for sale. In April 2025 the company announced field trials at commercial-scale operations (grower-investor Wish Farms) reached performance "on par with human harvesting," but there is no public evidence yet of general commercial availability beyond its investor-grower partner farms.
Best for: Large-scale Florida-style strawberry grower-shippers (the kind already invested in the company, e.g. Wish Farms, Naturipe, Driscoll's-aligned growers) facing a shrinking seasonal hand-picking workforce, who can work with Harvest CROO's service/lease model rather than buying hardware outright.| Compact S9000 Verified 2026-07-19 | B8 Harvester Verified 2026-07-19 | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Task | Harvesting | Harvesting |
| Autonomy | AI-assisted | Fully autonomous |
| Country of origin | Netherlands | United States |
| Availability | Available now | Pilot / limited |
| EU market | Pending | Pending |
| Lead time | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| Last verified | 2026-07-19 | 2026-07-19 |
| Specifications | ||
| Power source | Diesel-electric — 25 kW 4-cylinder turbodiesel engine (Stage 5) driving a 20 kVA electric power-distribution system; the manufacturer states the harvest mechanism itself runs fully on electricity (no hydraulics) and is "hybrid-ready" | Diesel-electric hybrid self-propelled platform — most drive motors are electric, powered from an onboard diesel fuel supply (reported for the B5-generation platform; current B8 powertrain not restated in public materials, no evidence of a change) |
| Required tractor power | Not applicable — self-propelled platform, no tractor required | Not required (self-propelled platform, not tractor-pulled) |
| Dimensions | 6 m long x 2.36 m wide x 2.93 m tall; turning radius 4.5 m | Approx. 32 ft long x 18 ft wide (reported for the platform's commercial-prototype generation) |
| Weight | 4,500 kg operational weight (manufacturer spec table) | Not disclosed |
| Min farm size | Manufacturer states the robot is "on average profitable from 10 hectares"; single-unit field capacity is 15 ha total | Not disclosed (deployed to date with large commercial grower-shippers, e.g. Wish Farms' ~600-acre Florida operation) |
| Productivity | Up to 9,000 stalks/hour harvesting rate; field capacity 5 ha/day, 15 ha total per unit (each bed harvested roughly every 3 days) | Up to 8 acres/day in 20-hour shifts at full commercial scale — company states this replaces the work of 25-30+ hand pickers; picks a full 16-robot pass on a plant in roughly 8 seconds, indexing to the next plant in about 1.5 seconds |
| Max speed | 3.6 km/h (1 m/s), both travel and harvesting | About 3 inches/second forward travel while picking |
| Sensors | Optical RGB combined with AI, plus underground/subsurface spear detection | 360-degree LiDAR for navigation/obstacle avoidance; dual GPS for sub-plant positioning; onboard stereo cameras and an AI/machine-vision system (recently upgraded to current-generation NVIDIA chips) to assess ripeness |
| Price & model | ||
| Price (EUR) | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| Native price | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| Business model | Direct sale from AvL Motion (Westerbeek, NL); price on request, not published on the manufacturer's site or found in independent coverage. Belgium/Luxembourg availability was claimed in early-2023 third-party listings but is not confirmed at the manufacturer, so it is not listed here. One operator must be present in the field to direct the robot via remote control and collect harvested spears; the robot itself autonomously navigates the bed and executes harvesting once directed. | Harvesting-as-a-service — Harvest CROO leases the harvester and operates it for the grower (piece-rate-style pricing was described for an earlier generation), rather than selling the machine; no public list price found |
| Ongoing cost | Not disclosed — no published service or subscription costs found on the manufacturer's site. | Not disclosed — service/lease terms are negotiated directly with growers |
| Key outcome | ||
| Best verified result | — No verified outcome | Harvest crew size for a given field One B8 Harvester (16 picking robots) covering up to 8 acres/day in a 20-hour shift · vendor |
| EU context | ||
| CE marking | Not disclosed — no CE-marking statement found on the manufacturer's site or in independent coverage | Not applicable — no evidence of EU market placement; US-only operations found |
| Machinery Regulation | Not disclosed — no explicit compliance statement found; the autonomous-navigation/remote-operated cutting functions would fall under Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 if placed on the EU market | Not applicable — not placed on the EU market |
| CAP subsidy | Harvest automation — not directly tied to CAP eco-schemes | Not applicable — US-based service, outside EU CAP |
"—" means the manufacturer has not disclosed the figure; we never estimate silently. Model either machine's payback with your own numbers on its ROI calculator page.