A multi-sensory end-effector for spherical fruit harvesting robot

An end-effector for spherical fruit harvesting robot was developed. This end-effector is a multi-sensory one that is universal for spherical fruit such as tomatoes, apples and citrus. It performs fruit singulation with a vacuum suction pad device, fruit gripping and peduncle locating with a two-finger (an upper finger and a lower finger) gripper and peduncle cutting with a laser cutting device. In order to percept sufficient information of the internal state, harvesting object and environment, different types of sensors are configured, including a vacuum pressure sensor, distance sensors, proximity sensors and force sensors. An open architecture of control system based on IL+DSP is adopted, which is more open, flexible, universal and lighter to be more suitable for a mobile harvesting robot and end-effector.