Design and Research on Vision System of Apple Harvesting Robot

The vision system of apple harvesting robot was researched and designed to make it possible for realizing automatic harvesting of apple. The vision system model is studied. The vision system of apple harvesting robot was designed by two aspects, including hardware composition and soft architecture. The VFW method was employed to realize the real-time image acquisition. The recognition of vision system is developed using the combination method of regional growth algorithm and color characteristics. The preliminary orientation of apple target was calculated by finding its centroid. At last, the performance of this version system was evaluated. The results showed that the developed vision system of apple harvesting robot successfully achieved the recognition and orientation of apple target. It was conclude that this version system was effective for realizing the automatic harvesting of apple.