1998 Volume 60 Issue 1 Pages 59-68
A cherry tomato harvesting robot equipped with a 3-D vision sensor was made for experiment. The manipulator has four degree-of-freedom; right-left turning, up-down traverse, up-down turning and in-out traverse. Fruits were picked with a suction type harvesting hand that can be bent to the right and left. For the purpose of collision avoidance, the locations of the stems and leaves as well as the red ripe fruits were recognized by processing the 3-D image. The locus and bending direction of the hand were decided by the location of the fruit and obstacle. The collision avoidance was effective for the cherry tomato harvesting robot, although some problems must be solved for the reliable harvesting job.
