• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.91-99
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• 2020

Fruit and vegetable harvesting robots have been widely studied and developed in recent years to reduce the cost of harvesting tasks such as labor and time. However, harvesting robots have many challenges due to the difficulty and uncertainty of task. In this paper, we characterize the crop environment related to the harvesting robot and analyzes state-of-the-art of the harvesting robot especially, in the viewpoint of robotic end-effector. The end-effector, an one of most important element of the harvesting robot, was classified into gripper and harvesting module, which were reviewed in more detail. Performance measures for the evaluation of harvesting robot such as test, detachment success, harvest success, and cycle time were also introduced. Furthermore, we discuss the current limitations of the harvesting robot and challenges and directions for future research.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.281-286
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• 2004

The end-effector is the one of the important factors on development of the cucumber robot to harvester a cucumber. Three end-effectors were designed the single blade end-effector with one blade, the double blade end-effector with two blades and the triple blade end-effector with three blades. Performance tests of the end-effector, the fully integrated system, were conducted to determine the cutting rate by using two different kinds of cucumber. The success rates of cucumber cutting ratio of single end-effector, double end-effector and triple end-effector in laboratory. were 61.7%, 95%, 86.7%, respectively. The cutting rate of single blade or double blade was a little difference with respect to the different diameters of cucumber stem. However, the success cutting rate of the end-effector with triple blade was 61.7% under 29mm diameter of a grabbing stem section. The triple end-effector was not suitable for harvesting a cucumber, but was considered to be suitable for harvesting a grape, an apple and a tomato. The success rate of cucumber cutting ratio of triple end-effectors in greenhouse was 84%. The failure cutting rate was 16% which are due to abnormal shape of cucumber fruit.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• 1996.06c
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• pp.621-631
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• 1996

It is said that robot can be used for multi-purpose use by changing end effector or/and visual sensor with its software. In this study, it was investigated what multi-purpose robot for fruit-production was using a tomato harvesting robot and a robot to work in vineyard. Tomato harvesting robot consisted of manipulator, end-effector, visual sensor and traveling device. Plant training system of larger size tomato is similar with that of cherry-tomato. Two end-effectors were prepared for larger size tomato and cherry-tomato fruit harvesting operations, while the res components were not changed for the different work objects. A color TV camera could be used for the both work objects, however fruit detecting algorithm and extracted features from image should be changed. As for the grape-robot , several end-effector for harvesting , berry thinning , bagging and spraying were developed and experimented after attaching each end-effector to manipulator end. The manipulator was a polar coordinate type and had five degrees of freedom so that it could have enough working space for the operations. It was observed that visual sensor was necessary for harvesting, bagging and berry-thinning operations and that spraying operation requires another sensor for keeping certain distance between trellis and end-effector. From the experimental results, it was considered that multi-operations by the same robot could be appropriately done on the same or similar plant training system changing some robot components . One of the important results on having function of multi-operation was to be able to make working period of the robot longer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• 2000.11b
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• pp.354-362
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• 2000

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.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.63-70
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• 2000

In Korea, researches for year-round leaf vegetables production system are in progress and the most of them are focused on environment control. Automation technologies for harvesting , transporting and grading need to be developed. This study was conducted to develop harvesting process automation system profitable to a competitive price. 1. Manipulator and end-effector are to be designed and fabricated , and fuzzy logic controller for controlling these are to be composed. 2. The entire system constructed is to be evaluated through a performance test. A robot system for harvesting a lettuce was developed. It was composed of a manipulator with 20DOF (degrees of freedom) an end-effector, a lettuce feeding conveyor , an air blower , a machine vision device, 6 photoelectric sensors and a fuzzy logic controller. A fuzzy logic control was applied to determined appropriate grip force on lettuce. Leaf area index and height index were used as input parameters, and voltage was used as output parameter for the fuzzy logic controller . Success rate of the lettuce harvesting system was 93.06% , and average harvesting time was about 5 seconds per lettuce.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.65-74
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• 2012

Purpose: An autonomous robot was developed for harvesting strawberries cultivated in bench-type systems. Methods: The harvest robot consisted of four main components: an autonomous vehicle, a manipulator with four degrees of freedom (DOF), an end effector with two DOFs, and a color computer vision system. Strawberry detection was performed based on 3D image and distance information obtained from a stereo CCD color camera and a laser device, respectively. Results: In this work, a Cartesian type manipulator system was designed, including an intermediate revolute axis and a double driven arm-based joint axis, so that it could generate collision-free motions during harvesting. A DC servomotor-driven end-effector, consisting of a gripper and a cutter, was designed for gripping and cutting the strawberry stem without damaging the strawberry itself. Real-time position tracking algorithms were developed to detect, recognize, trace, and approach strawberries under natural light conditions. Conclusion: The developed robot system could harvest a strawberry within 7 seconds without damage.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• 1996.06c
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• pp.1063-1072
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• 1996

Fruit harvesting robots should have more diversity and flexibility in the working conditions and environments than industrial robots. This paper presents an efficient optimization algorithm for redundant manipulators to avoid obstacles using dynamic performance criteria, while the optimization schemes of the previous studies used the performance criteria using kinematic approach. Feasibility and effectiveness of this algorithm were tested through simulations on a 3-degrees-of-freedom manipulator made for this study. Only the position of the end-effector was controlled , which requires only three degrees of freedom. Remaining joints, except for the wrist roll joint, which does not contribute to the end-effector linear velocity, provide two degrees of redundancy. The algorithm was effective to avoid obstacles in the workspace even through the collision occurred in extended workspace, and it was found be to a useful design tool which gives more flexibility to design conditions nd to find the mechanical constraints for fruit harvesting robots.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.2048-2053
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• 2011

The aim of this paper is to propose an energy harvesting system by converting mechanical energy of revolving door into electrical energy. The method of energy harvesting system is discussed on two methods: one is the energy-harvester using gear shaft coupling system, and the other is the energy-harvester using spiral spring system. The former is generated by coupling the shaft of rotating door with generator system, while the latter is generated by connecting end-effector of door with the string of generator system. We present the experimental results for two developed energy-harvester. Finally, a comparison between these results is presented to show the validity of energy-harvester.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• 1996.06c
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• pp.638-647
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• 1996

Robot manipulators for harvesting fruits must be controlled to track the desired path of end-effector to avoid obstacles under the consideration of collision free area and safety path. This paper presents a robot path control algorithm to secure a collision free area with the recognition of work environments. The flexible space, which does not damage fruits or branches of tree due to their flexibility and physical properties , extends the workspace. Now the task is to control robot path in the extended workspace with the consideration of collision avoidance and velocity limitation at the time of collision concurrently. The feasibility and effectiveness of the new algorithm for redundant manipulators were tested through simulations of a redundant manipulator for different joint velocities.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.123-130
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• 2014

Oriental melon (Cucumis melo var. makuwa) should be cultivated on the soil and be harvested. It is difficult to find because it is covered with leaves, and furthermore, it is very hard to grip it due to its climbing stems. This study developed and tested oriental melon harvesting robots such as an end-effector, manipulator and identification device. The end effector is divided into a gripper for harvest and a cutter for stems. In addition, it was designed to control the gripping and cutting forces so that the gripper could move four fingers at the same time and the cutter could move back and forth. The manipulator was designed to realize a 4-axis manipulator structure to combine orthogonal coordinate-type and shuttle-type manipulators with L-R type model to rotate based on the central axis. With regard to the identification device, oriental melon was identified using the primary identification global view camera device and secondary identification local view camera device and selected in the prediction of the sugar content or maturity. As a result of the performance test using this device, the average harvest time was 18.2 sec/ea, average pick-up rate was 91.4%, average damage rate was 8.2% and average sorting rate was 72.6%.