Fruit Harvesting Robot in Orchard

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1. A robot which harvested fruits on a large canopy such as orange was investigated. For this purpose, a prototype robot manipulator had been made by trial. On this research project, this manipulator was improved and a fruit detecting vision system was made and experimented. Fundametal experiment of fruit harvesting was done.2. A color TV camera was used for feeding the fruit image to the computer. The fruit was recognized by the difference of color between the fruit and the background. The three-dimensional location of each fruit was calculated well by means of a stereo-camera method.3. A fruit harvesting flexible hand was made by trial. This hand consisted of three rubber fingers for grasping the fruit and scissors for cutting the stem. They were respectively driven by pneumatic rubber actuators and a cylinder.4. Fruit harvesting experiment was done in the laboratory. The fruit location was detected by above mentioned image input device and the detected fruit was grasped well by the fingers and the stem was cut by the scissors. It was considered that the fruit could be harvested by this robot.5. A special purpose TV camera with two image sensors for recognizing the fruit was made and the fundamental experiment was done. Two images of different wavelength (i.e. different color) were fed to these image sensors. A clear fruit image was obtained by comparing these video signals.6. An electro-optic sensor for detecting obstacles such as leaves and stems near the fruit was made by trial and experimented. This sensor could detect the position of the obstacles in front of the sensor.7. Fruit harvesting experiment will be done in the orchard and the operating performance will be investigated.