Contents
Chapter 1 History and Present Situations of Robotic Harvesting Technology: A Review 1
1.1 An Industry of Fresh-Eat Fruits and Vegetables and Its Labor-Cost Harvesting 1
1.2 The History and Current Situation of the Development of Robotic Harvesting Equipment in the Whole World 2
1.2.1 Tomato Harvesting Robots 2
1.2.2 Fruit Harvesting Robot for Orchards 15
1.2.3 Harvesting Robots for Fruits and Vegetables 38
1.2.4 Other Fruit Harvesting Robots 65
1.2.5 Other Harvesting Robots 74
1.3 Summary and Prospect 88
1.3.1 The Continuous Progress of Robotic Harvesting Technology 88
1.3.2 Technical Keys to the Development of Harvesting Robot Technology 89
1.3.3 The Historical Characteristics of the Technology Development of the Harvesting Robots 90
1.3.4 The Breakthrough Points of the Technology Development of Harvesting Robots 93
1.3.5 Key Fields of Technology Development of Harvesting Robots 95
References 95
Chapter 2 Damage and Damage-Free Harvesting in Robotic Operation 107
2.1 Cause of Fruit Damage in Robot Harvesting 107
2.2 Passive Compliant Structure in Robotic Harvesting 108
2.2.1 Elastic Surface Material 108
2.2.2 Under-Actuated End-Effectors 110
2.2.3 Elastic-Medium Fingers 112
2.3 Active Compliance Control in Robotic Harvesting 114
2.4 The Robotic Speedy Damage-Free Harvesting 118
2.4.1 The Significance and Particularity of Robotic Speedy Damage-Free Harvesting 118
2.4.2 The Particularity of the Collision in Robotic Speedy Gripping of Fruit 120
2.4.3 The Research System of Speedy Damage-Free Harvesting 121
References 123
Chapter 3 The Physical and Mechanical Properties of Tomato Fruit and Stem 127
3.1 Summary 127
3.1.1 Research Significance 127
3.1.2 Content and Innovation 127
3.2 The Physical/Mechanical Properties Index System of Tomato Fruit-Stem Related to Robotic Harvesting 128
3.3 Physical Properties of Tomato Fruit and Stem 129
3.3.1 Structure of Tomato Fruit and Stem 129
3.3.2 Physical Property of Tomato Fruit and Stem 131
3.4 Mechanical Properties of Tomato Fruit Components 134
3.4.1 Material， Equipment， and Method 134
3.4.2 Results and Analysis 143
3.5 Compressive Mechanical Properties of the Whole Tomato 148
3.5.1 The Compression Force-Deformation Properties 148
3.5.2 Creep Properties 153
3.5.3 Stress Relaxation Properties 155
3.5.4 Load-Unload Properties 157
3.6 Frictional Mechanical Properties of Tomato Fruits 160
3.6.1 Static and Sliding Friction Coefficients 160
3.6.2 Measurement of Rolling Resistance Coefficient 163
3.7 Mechanical Structure Model of the Whole Tomato Fruit 164
3.7.1 The Wheel-like Simplification Mechanical Structure of Fruit 164
3.7.2 Mechanical Properties of Tomatoes with Different Numbers of Locules 166
3.8 Mechanical Damage in Tomato Fruits 176
3.8.1 Mechanical Damage Mechanism of Tomato Fruit 176
3.8.2 Physiological Change of Tomatoes After Being Compress 176
3.9 The Properties of Tomato Stem 184
3.9.1 Stem System 184
3.9.2 Mechanical Properties of Tomato Fruit System 186
3.9.3 Results 190
References 192
Chapter 4 Development of Damage-Free Hand-Arm System for Tomato Harvesting 197
4.1.1 Research Significance 197
4.1.2 Content and Innovation 197
4.2 Development of Damage-Free Harvesting End-Effector 198
4.2.1 System Scheme Design of Damage-Free Harvesting End-Effector 198
4.3 Motion Configuration Scheme 199
4.4 System Components of the End-Effector 213
4.4.1 Mechanism Design of End-Effector 214
4.4.2 Design of the Sensing System 223
4.4.3 Design of Control System 225
4.4.4 Design of Power Supply System 228
4.4.5 Structure Design of the End-Effector 230
4.4.6 Prototype and Its Performance Indicators 231
4.4.7 Upper Lower Type End-Effector 233
4.4.8 Passive-active Coupled Compliant End-Effector for Robot Tomato Harvesting 233
4.5 Damage-Free Harvesting Hand-arm System Based on Commercial Manipulator 236
4.5.1 Background and Needs 236
4.5.2 The Control System Structure of Commercial Manipulator 237
4.5.3 Control System Integration Between the Manipulator and the End-Effector 239
References 241
Chapter 5 Mathematical Modeling of Speedy Damage-Free Gripping of Fruit 247
5.1 Summary 247
5.1.1 Research Significance 247
5.1.2 Content and Innovation 247
5.2 Experiment of Speedy Fruit Gripping and Special Collision Characteristics 248
5.2.1 Experiment of Speedy Fruit Gripping 248
5.2.2 Collision Characteristics of Speedy Fruit Gripping 248
5.3 The Special Collision Issue of Speedy Fruit Gripping 250
5.4 Dynamic Characteristics in Different Phases of Speedy Fruit Gripping 250
5.5 Fruit Compression Model 252
5.5.1 The Viscoelastic Properties of Fruit and the Characterization of Constitutive Model 252
5.5.2 Burger’s Modified Model for Characterization of Creep Properties of Whole Fruit 256
5.6 Complex Collision M