B8 Harvester vs FAR Flying Autonomous Robots
Two harvesting machines, one verified table. Every figure below is sourced and dated; vendor claims are labelled and kept apart from independent results.
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.Israeli tethered flying robots that pick tree fruit — apples, peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums and pears — with AI vision selecting only ripe fruit and logging weight, colour and geolocation per fruit. Commercially harvesting with Rivoira Group in Italy, HMC Farms in California/Washington and Unifrutti in Chile, primarily as picking-as-a-service paid per harvested tonne; machine purchase offered since late 2023. Raised an $18M Series C in March 2026 with Kubota among investors.
Best for: Large orchard operations (apples, stone fruit, pears) in Tevel's active regions wanting to replace scarce seasonal picking crews with a per-tonne harvest service that also delivers per-fruit data.| B8 Harvester Verified 2026-07-19 | FAR Flying Autonomous Robots Verified 2026-07-17 | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Task | Harvesting | Harvesting |
| Autonomy | Fully autonomous | Fully autonomous |
| Country of origin | United States | Israel |
| Availability | Pilot / limited | Available now |
| EU market | Pending | CE-marked |
| Lead time | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| Last verified | 2026-07-19 | 2026-07-17 |
| Specifications | ||
| Power source | 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) | Electric — tethered drones powered and coordinated from a mobile ground platform |
| Required tractor power | Not required (self-propelled platform, not tractor-pulled) | Ground platform moves through the orchard; drones are platform-tethered |
| Dimensions | Approx. 32 ft long x 18 ft wide (reported for the platform's commercial-prototype generation) | Not disclosed |
| Weight | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| Min farm size | Not disclosed (deployed to date with large commercial grower-shippers, e.g. Wish Farms' ~600-acre Florida operation) | Not disclosed (deployments are large commercial orchards) |
| Productivity | 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 | 24/7 harvesting capability; per-unit picking rate not disclosed |
| Max speed | About 3 inches/second forward travel while picking | Not disclosed |
| Sensors | 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 | AI computer vision per drone — ripeness, size, colour grading and disease detection on each fruit; per-fruit weight and geolocation logging |
| Price & model | ||
| Price (EUR) | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| Native price | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| Business model | 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 | Primarily harvesting-as-a-service on multi-year plans, paid in €/tonne pegged to direct picking labour cost; revenue shared with regional service partners. Direct purchase offered since Q3 2023. |
| Ongoing cost | Not disclosed — service/lease terms are negotiated directly with growers | Per-tonne service fee (rates not published) |
| Key outcome | ||
| Best verified result | 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 | Total harvesting cost −20–30% total cost (vendor claim) · vendor |
| EU context | ||
| CE marking | Not applicable — no evidence of EU market placement; US-only operations found | CE status not published; operating commercially in Italian orchards with Rivoira Group |
| Machinery Regulation | Not applicable — not placed on the EU market | EU deployments via service partners; Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 autonomous-machine provisions apply, drone elements may engage additional EU rules |
| CAP subsidy | Not applicable — US-based service, outside EU CAP | Harvest automation — not directly tied to CAP eco-schemes |
"—" 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.