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Performance Evaluation of a Harvesting Robot for Sweet Pepper
Author(s) -
Bac C. Wouter,
Hemming Jochen,
Tuijl B.A.J.,
Barth Ruud,
Wais Ehud,
Henten Eldert J.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of field robotics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.152
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1556-4967
pISSN - 1556-4959
DOI - 10.1002/rob.21709
Subject(s) - grasp , robot , greenhouse , agricultural engineering , software , robot end effector , engineering , artificial intelligence , simulation , computer science , computer vision , horticulture , biology , software engineering , programming language
This paper evaluates a robot developed for autonomous harvesting of sweet peppers in a commercial greenhouse. Objectives were to assess robot performance under unmodified and simplified crop conditions, using two types of end effectors (Fin Ray; Lip type), and to evaluate the performance contribution of stem‐dependent determination of the grasp pose. We describe and discuss the performance of hardware and software components developed for fruit harvesting in a complex environment that includes lighting variation, occlusions, and densely spaced obstacles. After simplifying the crop, harvest success significantly improved from 6% to 26% (Fin Ray) and from 2% to 33% (Lip type). We observed a decrease in stem damage and an increase in grasp success after enabling stem‐dependent determination of the grasp pose. Generally, the robot had difficulty in successfully picking sweet peppers and we discuss possible causes. The robot's novel capability of perceiving the stem of a plant may serve as useful functionality for future robots.