Structural Environment Suited to the Operation of a Strawberry-harvesting Robot Mounted on a Travelling Platform

Abstract

To establish a structural environment suited to the operation of a strawberry-harvesting robot, a rolling-type hanging bench and travelling platform were developed. The rolling-type hanging bench, consisting a bench frame, a driving shaft, a DC motor, a pinion-rack and a rolling plate, moved left and right along the beam of the greenhouse and could change the width of the path. The travelling platform, consisting of a main frame and a table, was a gantry structure that enabled a robot to move both in the path direction and sideways. No severe mechanical vibration during stepwise path travel at speed of 182 mm s^–1 was observed, although negative slippage was occurred. It was verified that the travelling platform performs stable travelling.