Grasp and orient whole irregular fruit to feed peeling/coring stations

Whole pineapples, melons, and similar fruit must be picked from infeed, oriented (e.g., crown/stem aligned to axis), and seated into dedicated coring/peeling machines. Pineapples vary widely in diameter, taper, and crown geometry, and patents in this space note that misalignment on the scoop or feed degrades all downstream cuts; crown removal itself is traditionally a manual twist. The fruit is heavy, rigid-skinned but bruisable underneath, and presents no consistent grasp surface. It is hard for a robot because the gripper must secure a slick, irregular object firmly enough to hold orientation through the insertion into the machine, without crushing flesh or losing pose. This task feeds Fresh Del Monte's core pineapple/melon fresh-cut output and is adjacent to its existing automated processing at Gonzales. 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.