Experimental study demonstrates high harvesting success and minimal fruit damage in citrus orchards, highlighting the feasibility of low-cost integrated gripper-shear robotics.
Key Points
Design, develop, and validate an efficient, low-cost integrated gripper-shear harvesting end-effector and clamping force control method for citrus harvesting.
Measured fruit phenotypic and mechanical properties to design a flexible clamping and sliding shear mechanism using mechanical design theory and computer-aided engineering.
Formulated a clamping force control strategy integrating finite element analysis and linear regression, validated through Ansys Workbench transient dynamic analysis across 15 clamping tests (10 initial, 5 validation).
Conducted 50 harvesting trials in Ehime No. 38 Citrus orchards to assess stalk severing and fruit damage rates.
Achieved a 96.0% success rate for stalk severing across 50 orchard harvesting trials.
Achieved a 94.0% success rate for harvesting completely undamaged citrus fruits.