Design and performance evaluation of a novel end-effector with integrated gripper cum cutter for harvesting greenhouse produce

Motivation for current work is to reduce the harvesting cost and increase the shelf life of the post-harvested yield of grapes and greenhouse produce using harvesting robots. A novel end-effector design comprising of cutter integrated with a gripper is developed, tested, and validated for harvesting different types of Greenhouse produce. For evaluating the efficacy of the novel end-effector, experiments are carried out on various vegetables and fruits like Table Grapes, Sweet Bell Pepper, Bitter Melon, Long Hot Chili Pepper, Eggplant, and Okra with average harvesting time of 28, 19, 17, 20, 17 and 18 seconds respectively. The designed novel end-effector viz. gripper cum cutter is compact in size and lightweight. It is attached to a custom-built pneumatically operated robotic arm, mounted on a multi-purpose agricultural vehicle. Once the fruit is detected through image sensing, a mechatronic module activates the gripper first to firmly grasp the peduncle of fruit, and the cutter cuts it, without any physical contact with fruit, resulting in the increased shelf life of fruit. The harvesting module is capable of harvesting various fruits and vegetables with an effective field capacity of 4.625 ha/hr with an effective operating time of 9.25 hrs in a 10 hours of a day with a field efficiency of 92.5%.