Research on Contact Sensor for Asparagus

Abstract

Asparagus harvesting is expected to shift from manual to mechanical for the stable farm management and scale enlargement because of the shortage of part-time workers. Authors started the development of a low-cost asparagus harvester with sensors for industrial use. A contact sensor was introduced for the asparagus recognition system. Through the preliminary experiments, the sensor could not detect the asparagus at ambient temperature as it is coated with insulating material. It was found that the material was removed with increasing temperature as it consists mainly of wax. The sensor can detect the asparagus with the contact element heated to about 40-80°C. The recognition rate was almost 100% when the temperature of the contact element was 70°C.