Development of a Harvesting Hand with a Parallel Link Mechanism for Harvesting Tomatoes Individually from Bunches

Currently, the number of farmers in Japan is decreasing and farmers are aging, creating a labor shortage in the agricultural sector. One solution to this problem is smart agriculture that incorporates AI and robot technology. We have been developing a tomato harvesting robot, and the grasping hand we have developed so far often comes in contact with tomatoes growing in clusters. This contact causes the hand to hit the surrounding area, resulting in the stem being entangled and other tomatoes being dropped, which can lead to poor harvesting. To solve this problem, we developed a tomato harvesting hand with a parallel link mechanism that maintains parallelism between the left and right hand parts when opening and closing the hand, thereby reducing the gap between the hand and the tomato to be harvested, which can cause stems and other tomatoes to wrap around the hand. A tomato harvesting hand with a parallel linkage mechanism was developed. The usefulness of this hand is demonstrated by preparing an experimental environment in which virtual tomato clusters are arranged and individual harvesting targets are harvested from the tomato clusters.