TY - JOUR
T1 - Development of a robotic harvesting mechanism for button mushrooms
AU - Huang, Mingsen
AU - Jiang, Xiaohu
AU - He, Long
AU - Choi, Daeun
AU - Pecchia, John
AU - Li, Yaoming
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was partially supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (Federal Appropriations under Project No. PEN04653 and Accession No. 1016510). We would like to give our special thanks to the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences Mushroom Research Competitive Grant Program supported by Giorgi Mushroom Company. We would also like to thank the Penn State Mushroom Research Center for providing the experiment site.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) harvesting mainly relies on costly manpower, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive. Robotic harvesting is an alternative method to address this challenge. In this study, a robotic mushroom picking mechanism was designed, including a picking end-effector based on a bending motion, a four degree-of-freedom (DoF) positioning end-effector for moving the picking end-effector, a mushroom stipe trimming end-effector, and an electropneumatic control system. A laboratory-scale prototype was fabricated to validate the performance of the mechanism. Bruise tests on the mushroom caps were also conducted to analyze the influence of air pressure and acting time of the suction cup on bruise level. The test results showed that the picking end-effector was successfully positioned to the target locations. The success rate of the picking end-effector was 90% at first pick and increased to 94.2% after second pick. The main reason for the failures was inclined growing condition of those mushrooms, resulting in difficulties in engaging the mushroom cap with the suction cup facing straight downward. The trimming end-effector achieved a success rate of 97% overall. The bruise tests indicated that the air pressure was the main factor affecting the bruise level, compared to the suction cup acting time, and an optimized suction cup may help to alleviate the bruise damage. The laboratory test results indicated that the developed picking mechanism has potential to be implemented in automatic mushroom harvesting.
AB - Button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) harvesting mainly relies on costly manpower, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive. Robotic harvesting is an alternative method to address this challenge. In this study, a robotic mushroom picking mechanism was designed, including a picking end-effector based on a bending motion, a four degree-of-freedom (DoF) positioning end-effector for moving the picking end-effector, a mushroom stipe trimming end-effector, and an electropneumatic control system. A laboratory-scale prototype was fabricated to validate the performance of the mechanism. Bruise tests on the mushroom caps were also conducted to analyze the influence of air pressure and acting time of the suction cup on bruise level. The test results showed that the picking end-effector was successfully positioned to the target locations. The success rate of the picking end-effector was 90% at first pick and increased to 94.2% after second pick. The main reason for the failures was inclined growing condition of those mushrooms, resulting in difficulties in engaging the mushroom cap with the suction cup facing straight downward. The trimming end-effector achieved a success rate of 97% overall. The bruise tests indicated that the air pressure was the main factor affecting the bruise level, compared to the suction cup acting time, and an optimized suction cup may help to alleviate the bruise damage. The laboratory test results indicated that the developed picking mechanism has potential to be implemented in automatic mushroom harvesting.
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U2 - 10.13031/TRANS.14194
DO - 10.13031/TRANS.14194
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85105565783
VL - 64
SP - 565
EP - 575
JO - Transactions of the ASABE
JF - Transactions of the ASABE
SN - 2151-0032
IS - 2
ER -