To deepen international scientific research cooperation on agricultural robots, from April 22nd to 25th, 2025, Researcher Xiong Ya and Dr. Lin Sen from Intelligent Equipment Research Center, Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences went to Switzerland to attend The 8th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Soft Robotics in 2025. Then, they conduct academic exchange visits to the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland.

The conference focused on bio-inspiration, design, benchmarking, industrial development, and applications of soft robotics, with participants from over 20 countries, including Switzerland, the UK, the US, Italy, Japan, Singapore, and China, representing universities, research institutions, and robotics companies. Researcher Xiong Ya gave a report titled "High-Tolerance Soft-Rigid Gripper for Low Damage Robotic Strawberry Harvesting" at the meeting. The research and development progress of the strawberry-picking robot jointly developed by the Intelligent Equipment Research Center and the Agricultural and Rural Affairs Bureau of Haidian District was introduced, with particular display of the research achievements in the field of soft mechanical hands. Dr. Lin Sen introduced the research achievements of the center in selective picking robots and soft picking execution mechanisms through posters. Experts and scholars from institutions such as Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Cambridge, University of Tokyo, IIT, and Yale University presented their research achievements in soft robots. The conference also held a raspberry picking and pipeline robot competition. Researcher Xiong Ya and Dr. Lin Sen had in-depth discussions with the participants on the development and application of soft robots in the agricultural field.

On April 23rd, Researcher Xiong Ya and Dr. Lin Sen visited Professor Josie Hughes' Computational Robotics Design and Manufacturing Laboratory at Ecole Polytechnology Federale de Lausanne. They visited research achievements such as low-cost rope-driven manipulators, rope-driven flexible mechanical arms, multi-functional deformable mobile platforms, bionic elephants, and raspberry-picking robots. In-depth exchanges were held with the laboratory members regarding flexible mechanical arms, and preliminary intentions were reached on cooperative research of soft robots in picking robots and mutual visits and exchanges of young personnel.