Ripeness/firmness grading of avocados and bananas by gentle palpation

Avocados and bananas are graded and sorted by ripeness before packing for retail/foodservice, a judgment traditionally made by hand-feel since external color alone is unreliable. The robot would gently palpate or compliantly grasp each fruit to assess firmness and select/route it accordingly, then place it without bruising into the correct pack. The fruit is fragile, bruise-prone, and ripeness varies continuously across a lot. It is hard for a robot because the discriminating signal is a controlled, sub-bruise-threshold compression force read against deformation, then a damage-free transfer. Fresh Del Monte operates a dedicated avocado packing facility in Mexico and tracks avocado quality data end-to-end, indicating active interest in produce quality/grading. We identified this through our own research; we have not confirmed the specifics with the customer directly. This page is our researched read — a starting point for that conversation.