Design And Research Of End-Effector For Apple Harvesting Robot

The output and planting scale of apples in China is the top of the world. It is the most time-consuming and exhausting segment to pick fruits during the production process. It demands more highly seasonality, more labor intensity and greater expense. Because of the complexity of picking work, it is still in very low level of automation. Currently, apple picking works are always carried out manually and it costs about30%-50%of whole production money. Intelligent fruit picking is the development trend of the modern world, it can improve the production efficiency a lot and promote apple industry greatly in our country. End-effector is part of robtor that is in direct connect with fruits. It has a direct influence on apple picking efficiency. In our country, the research of end-effector has just begun. There is only a little result. To solve this problem, a new kind of end-effector was developed in this project. The main work of the project as follows:1. Based on the understanding of growth characteristics and picking methods, end-effector was designed generally. Innovation theory TRIZ was used during the process of design.2. The3D model of the manipulator was established and the prototype was assembled in the virtual environment of UG The model was simulated in module of UG/Motion and the results met the requirements. The final design was determined and a manipulator was made in the end.3. Hardware and software systems were designed. Hardware system contains:end-effector, stepper motor, motor drivers, force sensor and single chip computer. Main-computer control interface was designed by MFC frame. MFC is the frame which is always used in VC++software. Submitted-computer program was designed in C language. The purpose of intelligent control was achieved through the software system. The system became into overall according the communication between the main and submitted computers.4. The reliability of end-effector for picking apples was examined through experiments after the whole platform was established. There were3experiments:success rate of picking, picking efficiency and whether there were damages on fruits. The results showed that:the end-effector met the requirements of appe harvest and there was nearly no damage on fruit. The end-effector was proved to be useful and reliable.5. The mobile apple harvesting robot was introduced and the simulation experiment of picking work was made in the laboratory.