ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,284,945, issued on April 29, was assigned to Fieldwork Robotics Ltd. (Plymouth, Great Britain).

"Robotic handling of picked fruit or vegetables" was invented by Ignacio Martin Requena (Cambridge, Great Britain), Maximilian Knolseisen (Cambridge, Great Britain) and Martin Stoelen (Plymouth, Great Britain).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In general terms, the present invention provides a storage system for a fruit or vegetable picking system, in which picked fruit or vegetables are delivered to a fixed filling location of the storage system, and then moved, by a robotic handling mechanism of the storage system, to one of many container locati...