Grasping damage analysis of apple by end‐effector in harvesting robot

Abstract

According to the grasping damage of apple during the process of robot picking apple, the variation of interior tensions inside the apple skin in the grasping process of apple with different type finger of robot end‐effector is researched. The finite element model for apple is established by ANSYS. Some simulations for the grasping process of apple with plane and arc‐shaped finger are carried out. The Von Mises stress nephograms of apple different tissue under different load force by different type fingers are obtained. The experimental results show that the apple cortex is more easily to get damaged due to its small failure stress. And the deformation and stress of apple caused by arc‐shaped finger are smaller than by plane finger. At last, the actual experiment for apple grasping damage of end‐effector with arc‐shaped finger validates the reliability of simulated results. The research results demonstrated that the finite element method can make accurate evaluation for apple damage. Practical applications A major problem associated with robot harvesting is the mechanical damage of apple caused by end‐effector of robot. When the apple is grasped by the end‐effector, the mechanical damage is often occurred underneath apple skin thus, which is difficult to find by the naked eye immediately. The results in our paper can accurate evaluation for apple damage and provide a foundational basis to develop an injury‐reduce device of apple harvesting robot.

Adaptive Variable Parameter Impedance Control for Apple Harvesting Robot Compliant Picking

“…e globoid end-effector reduces the contact pressure as well. us, the end-effector of apple harvesting robot adopts globoid double-fingered configuration [14]. e double finger end-effector of apple harvesting robot is shown in Figure 2.…”

Comparison of the Mass Tissue Strength of Strawberry Fruit between Vertical and Horizontal axes

“…For food technology, damage to fruit tissue is the behavior of tissue damage to cell mass when the fruit was exposed to excessive impact (Li et al, 2017). Fruit mass tissue damage is highly dependent on fruit texture .…”

“…Therefore, it is very important to measure the mass tissue damage of the fruit to assess the quality of postharvest fruit (Duarte-Molina et al, 2017;Contigiani et al, 2018). Several researchers have previously estimated the tissue damage to the fruit mass during the harvesting process (Li, 2013;Li et al, 2017), then developed harvesting tools such as robotic harvesting (Ji et al, 2017).…”

“…As a result, it is difficult to quantitatively assess the mass tissue damage and deformation of the strawberry fruit. This gap also hinders the development of nondestructive methods for fruit quality analysis (Zude et al, 2019) and limits the opportunity to investigate the influence of external stresses during harvest (Zhuang et al, 2019), appropriate packaging and transportation methods for distribution processes (Li et al, 2017). Therefore, this study aimed to compare the strength of the strawberry fruit mass between the vertical and horizontal axes using a compressive test at different speeds and levels of compressibility.…”

Mechanical collision simulation of potato tubers

“…These numerical method‐based simulations have been successfully applied to predict the behavior of structures and specific product development systematics in various engineering disciplines (Khoei, ). Use of FEA technique can be seen specifically on agricultural/food product‐related studies in recently published scientific literatures (Ashtiani et al, ; Caglayan et al, ; Celik, , , ; Fadiji, Coetzee, Berry, Ambaw, & Opara, ; Gao, Song, Rao, & Ying, ; Hoshyarmanesh, Dastgerdi, Ghodsi, Khandan, & Zareinia, ; Ji et al, ; Li, Andrews, & Wang, ; Mahapatra & Tripathy, ; Salarikia, Ashtiani, Golzarian, & Mohammadinezhad, ). These publications emphasize the advantages of the method in evaluation of the damage and bruising on the agricultural materials such as apples, pears, grapes, etc., under various loading conditions.…”