Design And Experimental Study Of Tomato Picking Manipulator

Our country has become the largest producer and exporter of tomatoes.Seasonal harvesting of fruits and vegetables will cause periodic labor shortages and sudden increases in labor costs,thereby increasing the production costs of fruits and vegetables.Therefore,the research on tomato picking machinery has become an important direction for the development of agricultural machinery.As the end effector of the fruit and vegetable harvesting robot,the picking manipulator is an important part of the entire picking system.The picking ability of the manipulator directly affects the execution efficiency of the entire system.Therefore,the design of the picking manipulator is an important part of the research and development of the harvesting robot.After summarizing the current development status of picking manipulators at home and abroad,the design goal is to maximize the protection of tomato fruits from damage,inspired by the botanical characteristics of tomatoes,follow the natural growth and reproduction laws of tomatoes,and use TRIZ innovative design theory as an auxiliary tool,Designed a tomato picking manipulator that applies force to the growth node of tomato platycodon.The design rationality and picking efficiency of tomato picking machinery were verified by simulation,prototype test and other methods.The verification result shows that the designed tomato picking manipulator has reached the expected goal of the design.The innovation of this design lies in the way the robot picks tomatoes.Through the study of tomato botanical characteristics,it is found that there is a growth node where the tomato petiole and platycodon connect,and the minimum pulling force required to separate the tomato from this node when picking.Therefore,a picking robot end effector that can separate the node without applying pressure to the tomato fruit is designed.The designed manipulator combines the positioning mechanism of tomato and the separation mechanism of Platycodon grandiflorum into a unified system.At the beginning of the research,the micro-processor Arduino is used to control,and the three servo motors in the manipulator are coordinated to drive the mechanism to move to complete the planned picking.action.