DEVELOPMENT OF A 3-DOF ROBOT FOR HARVESTING LETTUCE USING MACHINE: VISION AND FUZZY LOGIC CONTROL

  • S. I. Cho (School of Biological Resources and Materials Engineering College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University) ;
  • S. J. Chang (School of Biological Resources and Materials Engineering College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National Universit) ;
  • Kim, Y. Y. (School of Biological Resources and Materials Engineering College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University)
  • Published : 2000.11.01

Abstract

In Korea, researches on year-round leaf vegetables production system are in progress, most of them focused on environmental control. Therefore, automation technologies for harvesting, transporting, and grading are in great demand. A robot system for harvesting lettuces, composed of a 3-DOF (degree of freedom) manipulator, an end-effector, a lettuce feeding conveyor, an air blower, a machine vision system, six photoelectric sensors, and a fuzzy logic controller, was developed. A fuzzy logic control was applied to determine appropriate grip force on lettuce. Leaf area index and height were used as input variables and voltage as an output variable for the fuzzy logic controller. Success rate of the lettuce harvesting was 94.12%, and average harvesting time was approximately 5 seconds per lettuce.

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