ASABE Technical Library - Abstract

Abstract. The coffee harvesting mechanization in Brazil presented rapid evolution in recent years, so that it is already used for the selective harvesting of ripe coffee fruits, on commercial scale, by many producers. In order to perform the selective harvesting of coffee, some harvester's parameters, such as its rods cylinder vibration and operating speed, have to be regulated. This regulation, however, has been most of the time only empirically performed that is, by trial and error. As an alternative to this empiric procedure, an electronic device, referred in this work as a coffee harvesting manager, has been developed in order to assist the regulation of the harvester's parameters for the selective harvesting of coffee. This device determines the ideal harvester's vibration and operating speed, based on the coffee fruits detachment force. The volume of the detached coffee is directly proportional to the vibration intensity. On the other hand, the exposure time of the coffee to the vibration and to the harvesting process is determined by the harvester operating speed. The main contribution of this work is to present the operating principles of this coffee harvesting manager, able to determine the optimum harvester's parameters regulation as well as the most appropriate moment to initiate the harvesting. This manager has been evaluated and validated through experimental assays, proving to be an innovative and appropriate technology for the selective harvesting of coffee.