| A wearable electronic system for the instrumentation of strawberry and specialty crop pickers is presented, targeting use initially in strawberry harvesting with possible extensions into other specialty crop harvesting processes. The system includes a custom hardware platform designed to minimize form factor, weight, and power consumption in order to maximize operation time in the field as well as reducing any intrusions on normal laborer activity. Field laborer motion is monitored, recorded, and transmitted wirelessly in order to make decisions in a larger mobile robot network. System components include a hand sensor for reading accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer data for precise determination of limb motion during harvesting, as well as a belt device for receiving and processing of motion data for transmission to an autonomous robot fleet.;Evaluation through field trials and lab measurements established successful achievement of all key functional requirements for the wearable system. Experiments in strawberry fields allowed for perspectives on end-use as well as an opportunity to see the wearable system received positively by the workers. Form factor and weight targets were met and allowed for non-invasive use during harvesting. Achieved operation time matched closely with the target specification, although improvements in this area would benefit deployment in the highly variable daily work schedule. |
