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Direct Drive Brush-Shaped Tool with Torque Sensing Capability for Compliant Robotic Vine Suckering
Ivo Vatavuk1, Dario Stuhne1, Goran Vasiljević1
1Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Zagreb, Unska 3, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)
|February 11, 2023
Summary
This study introduces a direct drive robotic tool for vine suckering, enabling precise torque control and using torque feedback to guide robot arms. This technology allows robots to adapt to vine shapes without prior knowledge, improving agricultural automation.
Area of Science:
- Agricultural Robotics
- Mechanical Engineering
- Control Systems
Background:
- Vine suckering is labor-intensive and crucial for grape yield.
- Existing robotic solutions lack adaptability to variable plant structures.
- Precise torque control and sensing are needed for delicate agricultural tasks.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and evaluate a direct drive brush-shaped tool for robotic vine suckering.
- To utilize high-bandwidth torque feedback for compliant robot arm control.
- To enable robots to adapt to unknown vine trunk shapes during operation.
Main Methods:
- Designed a direct drive brush-shaped end-effector for precise torque management.
- Implemented high-bandwidth torque feedback for robot arm guidance.
- Conducted experiments to quantify torque-overlap relationship and validate trunk shape following.
Main Results:
- The direct drive design enables precise torque limitation and sensing capabilities.
- A quadratic relationship was identified between applied torque and brush-obstacle overlap.
- The tool successfully enabled compliant trunk shape following using torque feedback.
Conclusions:
- The developed direct drive tool functions effectively as both an actuator and a sensor for robotic vine suckering.
- Torque feedback significantly enhances a robot arm's ability to perform tasks on variably shaped objects like vine trunks.
- This technology offers a promising advancement for automated precision agriculture.
Keywords:
agricultural roboticsmobile manipulationoptimization and optimal controltorque sensingviticultureMore Related Videos
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