Development of a Fruit Harvesting Robot(I) -Development of a Manipulator and its Control System-

과실수확(果實收穫) 로보트에 관(關)한 연구(硏究)(I) -머니퓰레이터와 제어시스템 개발-

This study was carried out to develop an agricultural robot for fruit harvesting. As the first step an experimental manipulator and its control system were constructed. The articulated manipulator driven by DC motors has 3 degrees-of-freedom. The manipulator has a gripper adequate for fruit harvesting and an upper arm which forms a kind of guiding channel so thai harvested fruit can pass through. Point-to-point control of joints are accomplished by a digital control system with a PID controller which consists of optical shaft encoders, power amplifiers using PWM, a microcomputer and a software. The microcomputer also computes the positions of manipulator and sequence of motions. The motion of the manipulator was to slow and rough that it would need further improvement.