Development of Robot System for Tomato Production in Mobile Cultivation Facility

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The purpose of this study is to automate tomato producing works in a mobile cultivation facility. Various works are required for the tomato production. Among these works, we discussed fruit harvesting, stem training and defoliation. In the mobile cultivation facility, tomato plants move with the movement of the cultivating beds. For the application to the facility, we studied on stationary robot.The robot manufactured for the experiment consisted mainly of a manipulator, a 3-D vision sensor, an end-effector and a personal computer. The 3-D vision sensor scanned a laser beam consisting of red and infrared components of wavelength in a line. It fed three images to the computer ; a range image, an infrared image and a red image. Number of pixels of each image was 50000. Locations of fruits, stems, leaves and a stem-supporting pole were recognized by processing these images. Fundamental experiments of harvesting, stem training and defoliation were carried out. Cherry tomato fruit needs to be harvested with its calyx. To harvest it with the calyx, the harvesting end-effector was equipped with a semicircular part that pulled the peduncle. By the pulling motion, the peduncle was cut at the joint position and most of the fruits were harvested with its calyx. The stem training was done by binding the main stem to the pole with a elastic ring. The ring was split to be spread C-like figure. The ring was opened by the expanding motion of the end-effector. Then it was moved to the location of the main stem and the pole so that they were surrounded by the ring. By stopping the expansion, the ring clipped the stem and the pole by its elasticity. Defoliation experiment was also carried out. The leaf stalk was grasped by the end-effector and was broken by the twisting motion of the end-effector.