ASABE Technical Library - Abstract
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MOBILE TYPE SWEET PEPPER GRADING ROBOT
Published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan www.asabe.org
Citation: Automation Technology for Off-Road Equipment,Proceedings of the 7-8 October 2004 Conference (Kyoto, Japan)Publication Date 7 October 2004 701P1004.(doi:10.13031/2013.17871)Authors: N. Kondo, J. Qiao, S. Shibusawa, A. Sasao, E. Morimoto
Keywords: fruit grading, manipulator, image processing, mobile robot, precision agriculture
A mobile fruit grading robot for sweet pepper which follows operator who harvests manually in a field is discussed in this paper. Although most of grading systems are usually constructed at JAs (agricultural cooperative associations) and many producers utilize them cooperatively, it is a new concept that a grading robot system is movable in a filed with an operator and can create information added products.
A prototype machine, which consisted of a manipulator, an end-effector, a machine vision system, and a mobile mechanism, was manufactured as a trial. The robot could acquire five fruit images from four sides and from its top, while its manipulator transported the fruit received from the operator. The machine vision system gave information on size, color, shape, bruise and disease to each sweet pepper fruit. Fruit position was also stored with information on the size and quality together in its database when operator harvested it. From an experimental result, it was observed that this robot could make yield map and quality maps of sweet pepper fruits in a field by using the database.