1993 Volume 55 Issue 5 Pages 103-110
Mericlone culture of orchid plants is in vitro technique where all operations must be done in the sterile environment of the transfer hood. A robot system for transplanting orchid protocorms in seed propagation was studied and developed to reduce labor requirements and prevent contamination in plant tissue culture. A machine vision was used for recognition of protocorms that were about 0.5mm in diameter and randomly dotted on agar growth media. A small and light gripper driven by shape memory alloy actuator was able to handle softly the microscopic objects in delicate operation for transplanting protocorms. The intelligent robot system has a machine vision and micro-handling technique and could carryout transplanting more efficient than technician.
