Click on “Download PDF” for the PDF version or on the title for the HTML version. If you are not an ASABE member or if your employer has not arranged for access to the full-text, Click here for options. Preliminary Testing of a System for Evaluating Picker Efficiency in Tree FruitPublished by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan www.asabe.org Citation: 2012 Dallas, Texas, July 29 - August 1, 2012 121338439.(doi:10.13031/2013.41912)Authors: Yiannis G Ampatzidis, Bikram Adhikari, Patrick Scharf, Matthew D Whiting, Qin Zhang Keywords: Labor monitoring, wearable system, fruit harvesting, harvest efficiency, RFID, Zigbee Herein we present a real-time monitoring system that can track and record individual picker efficiency during harvest of tree crops. It integrates a digital weighing scale, RFID reader/writer, RFID tags, computational unit, and a wearable datalogger housed in a protective enclosure attached to the pickers belt. As harvested fruit is dumped into a standard collection bin situated on the scale, the system reads simultaneously the pickers ID (RFID tag) and records the incremental weight of fruit. Weight data are transmitted wirelessly to the pickers datalogger which displays, via LCD, the total weight of harvested fruit. The performance of the prototype system was evaluated during harvest of sweet cherries (Prunus avium L.) and apples (Malus domestica Borkh.). The mean harvest rate for manual harvest of Cowiche sweet cherry trees trained to a planar, compact architecture was 0.80 kg/person/min. In addition, preliminary tests showed that harvesting with a mechanical-assist harvest system improved harvest rate in a Skeena sweet cherry orchard trained to a Y-trellised system to 1.25 kg/person/min. In comparison, harvest rate of Fuji apple trees trained to a moderate density central leader architecture and Braeburn/M9 apple trees trained to a high density tall spindle system was 3.58 kg/person/min and 5.61 kg/person/min, respectively. (Download PDF) (Export to EndNotes)
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