Studies on Intellectualization of Agricultural Machinery (On the Artificial Tactile Sense)

Part 1; Experimental Apparatus for Measuring Dynamic Mechanical Properties of Farm Products

Abstract

The sensing devices by which the intelligent farm robot acquires the informations on the operating enviroments and objects correspond fundamentally to the five senses of human being. This research is concerned with the tactile sense, that is, the method of measuring on real time the dynamic mechanical properties of the farm products without giving the destruction or damage to them are discussed. The final goal of this research is to develop the artificial tactile sense which can evaluate the quality and maturity of the farm products and realize the stable grasp of them.
In this paper, the measuring principle and device controlled by the digital computer are discussed and the results of some fundamental experiments are presented. The system function (frequency response function) of the viscoelastic cubic sample grasped between the exciter and sensor can be estimated in real time (about 16s) from the input and output signals observed during excitation by the stationary random force.