Design and Testing of Litchi Picking End-effector Integrated Clamping and Cutting Performance

Aiming at mechanized picking of litchi fruits with low damage and high efficiency, an end-effector integrated clamping and cutting of litchi picking robot with single power source drive was designed firstly. Secondly, the cutting mechanical model and the stabilized clamping mechanical model of the litchi serial fruit mother branch were constructed. Thirdly, the force sealing of clamping module was analyzed, on this basis, the normal pressure computation model of stabilized clamping with three points contact was derived. At last, the physical prototype of end-effector was manufactured and the work performance tests were executed. The performance tests included picking test, load test and anti-occlusion interference test. The experiment results indicated that the litchi picking end-effector well preformed in weight clamping with maximum dynamic weights of 1.33 kg and 3.01 kg when the diameters of fruit mother branches were 3 mm and 7 mm, respectively. What's more, the litchi fruit was stably clamped and the branch was cut quickly when picking with average time of clamping and cutting of 2 s. The success rate was 100% when the diameters of the fruit mother branches were lower than 5 mm. The average success rate was 70% when the diameters of the fruit mother branches were between 6 mm and 7 mm. Besides, the end-effector had medium picking ability of anti-occlusion interference. © 2018, Chinese Society of Agricultural Machinery. All right reserved.