Prototype of a New Head Grabber for Robotic Strawberry Harvesting with a Vision System

This paper presents the design of a strawberry fruit head gripper unit, together with the concept of a control system for the operation of its mechanisms and vision system. The developed design consists of three specialised mechanisms: positioning, grasping, and cutting off of the fruit. A Finite Element Method (FEM) model was developed for the described design. Next, calculations were carried out, based on which the construction materials were selected. The key performance parameters of the functional model, built on the basis of the developed design concept, were verified under laboratory conditions. In tests carried out on the possible hematoma caused by exceeding the breaking stress induced by the pressure of the encompassing jaws on the fruit, it was found that none of the fruit tested suffered mechanical damage as a result of the sensor triggering force, and the average length of the trimmed stalk was approximately 14 mm. The designed head gripper, together with the proposed automation system, will contribute to improving harvesting precision, and this will favour a reduction in the quantitative and qualitative losses of the harvested crop. The experimental tests conducted under harvesting conditions showed a high efficiency of 95% in identifying ripe fruit, and the harvesting efficiency of the robotic arm was 90%.