Robotic melon harvesting

Author

Edan, Yael ; Rogozin, Dima ; Flash, Tamar ; Miles, Gaines E.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Ind. Eng. & Manage., Ben-Gurion Univ. of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel

Volume

16

Issue

6

fYear

2000

fDate

12/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

831

Lastpage

835

Abstract

Intelligent sensing, planning, and control of a prototype robotic melon harvester is described. The robot consists of a Cartesian manipulator mounted on a mobile platform pulled by a tractor. Black and white image processing is used to detect and locate the melons. Incorporation of knowledge-based rules adapted to the specific melon variety reduces false detections. Task, motion and trajectory planning algorithms and their integration are described. The intelligent control system consists of a distributed blackboard system with autonomous modules for sensing, planning and control. Procedures for evaluating performance of the robot performing in an unstructured and changing environment are described. The robot was tested in the field on two different melon cultivars during two different seasons. Over 85% of the fruit were successfully detected and picked

Keywords

agriculture; blackboard architecture; intelligent control; manipulators; motion control; object detection; path planning; robot vision; Cartesian manipulator; autonomous modules; black and white image processing; distributed blackboard system; false detections; intelligent planning; intelligent sensing; knowledge-based rules; mobile platform; motion planning; robotic melon harvesting; task planning; tractor; trajectory planning; Control systems; Image processing; Intelligent control; Intelligent robots; Manipulators; Mobile robots; Motion planning; Prototypes; Robot sensing systems; Trajectory;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Robotics and Automation, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1042-296X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/70.897793

Filename

897793