First prize for Poliba students from the RoboPhysics Laboratory in Japan. The fruitful robotic raspberry harvest makes the winning difference
IEEE RoboSoft 2026. International robotic Grasping competition in Kanazawa
30 April 2026
The Poliba team from the “RoboPhysics Laboratory” won first prize in Japan at the “RoboSoft Grasping Competition 2026”.
The competition took place from 8 to 9 April 2026 in Kanazawa, the cultural capital on the western coast of Japan, during the IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (IEEE RoboSoft 2026).
The competition saw the participation of several international teams dedicated to robotics. Among them, in addition to Poliba, were the highly competitive teams from JAIST (Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), Southern University of Science and Technology (Shenzhen, China), and Tecnológico de Monterrey University (Mexico).
The project. The challenge required the ad hoc design of a robotic gripper (specialized gripper), capable of collecting artificial raspberries with characteristics of softness and fragility similar to real raspberries, through the control and dosing of the correct force needed to detach the fruit from the plant and place it neatly in a basket without damaging it.
The winning students. Frutto del programma d’anno del percorso di studio del corso di “Mechatronics”, proseguito come attività di tesi (docente della materia, prof. Vito Cacucciolo), tre studenti Poliba del corso di laurea magistrale in “Mechanical Engineering”. Ciò ha consentito la composizione del team Poliba così formato: Elisabetta Annese e Luca Mitaritonna di Molfetta (Ba), Giuseppe Macchia di Palo del Colle (Ba), studenti; ing. Angelo Catalano, coordinatore-tutor, dottorando presso il RoboPhysics Laboratory, prof. Vito Cacucciolo, supervisore, responsabile scientifico del Laboratorio Poliba di robotica.
The competition. The RoboPhysics Laboratory team presented a soft end-effector that used a mechanism that autonomously adapted force and shape to the grasped object thanks to its particular structure and the use of flexible materials. This gripper made it possible to combine the ability to achieve a firm grasp with the delicacy required to handle fragile objects such as raspberries without damaging them. In addition, the team optimized the geometry and materials of the gripper to maximize harvesting performance. The winning idea was the development of an innovative hybrid positioning system that, by automatically recognizing raspberries through their red color, allowed one of the team students, via a video game joypad, to make precision adjustments to ensure the complex grasping position required to pick the raspberry.
The test. Each team had 10 minutes to collect as many ripe raspberries as possible. The score was reduced if the raspberries or artificial plants were damaged during harvesting, or if picking a single raspberry required more than one attempt, or if an unripe raspberry (green in color) was mistakenly collected.
The result. The Politecnico di Bari team achieved the highest score in the competition, 238 out of 264 available points. Great satisfaction was expressed by the entire participating group for the result obtained. Congratulations from the Rector, Umberto Fratino, were also not lacking.
The Poliba group was sponsored by Omnigrasp, a spin-off of the Politecnico, supplier of the robotic arm. Technical support: engineers Antonio Camposeo and Fabio Gargano. Co-supervisors of the Poliba PhD student, Angelo Catalano: Prof. Mariagrazia Dotoli, Prof. Raffaele Carli.
The article First prize for Poliba students from the RoboPhysics Laboratory in Japan. The fruitful robotic raspberry harvest makes the winning difference comes from Poliba Chronicle.