Download or read book Semi automated End effector Concepts for Localized Removal and Catching of Fresh market Apples in Fruiting Wall Orchards written by Mark E. De Kleine and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mechanizing the fruit removal operation during fresh-market apple harvesting is essential for labor use and cost savings for fruit growers. This study introduces a semi-automated mechanical fruit harvesting system that uses a fruit removal technique based a unique limb shaking mechanism called a Dual Motor Actuator (DMA). A manipulator arm, positioned by a human, held a fruit catchframe and an end-effector. The system was mounted on a mobile orchard platform. The dual motor actuator was developed as an infinitely variable pattern end-effector that applies rhythmic motions to a fruiting limb to remove fruit. The novelty of the DMA design is the use of two eccentrics mounted to electric motors that are pinned together to form a triangle with an adjustable base. Pattern, rhythm, and actuation time, were varied to characterize the removal efficiency and fruit damage rates in a formally trained 'Gala' orchard. Removal efficiency averaged 35% across the fruiting section (limb) but averaged 88% within the actuation zone of the fruiting section, showing potential for a semi-selective harvesting technique to localize fruit removal on branches trained to trellis wires. A circular pattern using a 200 cycles min-1 rhythm achieved the lowest overall damage rate (10%) for any combinations of the patterns and rhythms tested. Bruise rate was also the lowest (4%) using the same pattern and rhythm setting. Rhythm and actuation time were significant factors that influenced the fruit removal condition. No fruit was removed outside of the targeted actuation zone when using a single limb grasper. This localized limb actuation method shows a great potential for removing apples from a limb while maintaining fresh-market quality fruit.
Download or read book Automation in Tree Fruit Production written by Qin Zhang and published by CABI. This book was released on 2017-11-30 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Automation in agriculture is made possible by the integration of advanced agricultural technology and precision agriculture management. This book, uniquely, will focus on applications of automation to the important industry of tree fruit production. Written by experts in agricultural automation technology from around the world, chapters in this book cover topics such as automated tree fruit production systems, plant stress sensing and high-throughput phenotyping in precision horticulture, the economics of automation in tree fruit production, light interception sensing systems for canopy management, precision irrigation and water management, precision technologies for pest and disease management, opportunities for the application of robotics in tree fruit production, and the mechanical harvesting and handling of fruit crops. The book is a representative, concise overview of the variety of technologies currently being applied to tree fruit crops around the world and the challenges faced by engineers and farmers that these technologies raise. It is aimed at researchers and graduate students of agriculture systems, agricultural and biological engineering, crop and soil sciences, horticulture, precision agriculture, and other relevant disciplines. It will also be of use to agriculture consultants, engineers, and other professionals such as agricultural equipment manufacturers and management professionals who use precision agriculture technologies.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Digital Agricultural Technologies written by Qin Zhang and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-10-11 with total page 1636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Digital agriculture is an emerging concept of modern farming that refers to managing farms using modern Engineering, Information and Communication Technologies (EICT) aiming at increasing the overall efficiency of agricultural production, improving the quantity and quality of products, and optimizing the human labor required and natural resource consumption in operations. This encyclopedia is designed to collect the summaries of knowledge on as many as subjects or aspects relevant to ECIT for digital agriculture, present such knowledge in entries, and arrange them alphabetically by articles titles. Springer Major Reference Works platform offers Live Update capability. Our reference work takes full advantage of this feature, which allows for continuous improvement or revision of published content electronically. The Editorial Board Dr. Irwin R. Donis-Gonzalez, University of California Davis, Dept. Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Davis, USA (Section: Postharvest Technologies) Prof. Paul Heinemann, Pennsylvania State University, Department Head of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, PA, USA (Section: Technologies for Crop Production) Prof. Manoj Karkee, Washington State University, Center for Precision and Automated Agricultural Systems, Washington, USA (Section: Robotics and Automation Technologies) Prof. Minzan Li, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China (Section: Precision Agricultural Technologies) Prof. Dikai Liu, University of Technology Sydney (UTS),Faculty of Engineering & Information Technologies, Broadway NSW, Australia (Section: AI, Information and Communication Technologies) Prof. Tomas Norton, University of Leuven, Dept. of Biosystems, Heverlee Leuven, Belgium (Section: Technologies for Animal and Aquatic Production) Dr. Manuela Zude-Sasse, Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB), Precision Horticulture, Potsdam, Germany (Section: Engineering and Mechanization Technologies)
Download or read book Mechanical Harvest of Fresh Market Apples written by Zhao Zhang and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the progress, changes, and evolvement for apple mechanical harvest during the past decades, which include, but not limited to, bulky harvest method, harvest platform, apple infield sorting, and harvest robotics. Though there are significant progresses in apple harvest robotics, there still is a long way ahead before its practical applications, with existing and potential bottlenecks described in this book. Hence, other researchers would take advantage of this book to have a hint of the apple mechanical harvest history and state-of-the-art progress, so that they can find the room for their new research. This book targets senior undergraduates and more importantly graduate students in the field of agricultural engineering, sensing, automatic, and robotics.
Download or read book Study of Canopy Machine Interaction in Mass Mechanical Harvest of Fresh Market Apples written by Xin Zhang and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fresh-market apple is one of the high-value agricultural produces in the United States and Washington. These apples are harvested manually worldwide, which requires a large seasonal workforce. Due to uncertain availability and rising cost of labor, the need for mechanical harvesting technologies has become critically important. Shake-and-catch harvesting technology has been studied to address this issue. Major challenges for mechanically harvesting fresh-market fruit include insufficient fruit removal, high fruit damage, and low labor productivity. As a way to address these challenges, this study focused on understanding canopy responses to the harvesting system through employing a supervised machine learning algorithm. Specifically, it aimed at identifying the most relevant canopy parameters influencing the fruit removal during mechanical harvesting. Based on the analysis of apples 'harvested' mechanically and those that remained on the trees after harvesting operation, fruit load, branch diameter, and shoot length/diameter were found to be the canopy parameters highly relevant to the success of mechanical harvesting techniques. Field tests, therefore, revealed that the pruning strategies have a remarkable influence on fruit removal efficiency. It was found that, to maintain a minimum removal efficiency of 85%, the shoot length should be less than 15 cm or S-index (the ratio of shoot diameter to length) should be >0.03.This study also included a comprehensive evaluation for comparing different harvesting systems based on multi-year/cultivar field trials. The results showed that the semi-automated system was more effective (fruit removal efficiency of 90%) compared to the hand-held (87%) and the manually operated hydraulic systems (84%). To further advance the automated machine operation, a machine vision (deep learning-based) system was developed for detecting and localizing tree trunks and branches, which achieved an intersection over union (the ratio of overlapping to total area) of 0.69 in trunk/branch detection. Polynomial curves were then employed for fitting the branches/trunks through the detected segments, which was used in estimating shaking locations on those branches. This research served as a basis for optimizing and advancing shake-and-catch harvesting technologies on fresh-market apple harvesting, which is expected to make a huge, positive impact on the long-term economic sustainability of apple industry.
Download or read book Machine Vision System for Robotic Apple Harvesting in Fruiting Wall Orchards written by Abhisesh Silwal and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation focuses on the study and evaluation of a machine vision and an integrated robotic system for automated harvesting of apples grown in modern fruiting wall orchards. The machine vision algorithm designed to work in orchard environment accurately detected apples growing individually as well as in heavy clusters under variable natural lighting conditions. A pragmatic approach to harvesting (also called hierarchical approach) showed that 98% of the fruit could be detected with iterative imaging and harvesting of most visible fruits. The integrated robotic system with global camera and custom built seven degrees of freedom manipulator successfully picked 84% of attempted fruit with 6 seconds of average harvest time per fruit. This approach of selective apple harvesting with a global camera system and low-cost manipulator show a huge potential for cost-effective robotic solutions for harvesting fresh market apples. However, several limitations still remain to be addressed for commercialization.
Download or read book Analysis and Design of an Auxiliary Catching Arm for an Apple Picking Robot written by Andrew Michael Porter and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Significant effort has been made to develop a 7-degree of freedom (DOF) articulated robotic arm system to harvest fresh market apples in a modern apple orchard at Washington State University. The novelty of this design is that it works in tandem with a 2-DOF planar catching manipulator since a key task in robotic harvesting is the collection of the picked fruit in a container. Rather than using a harvesting manipulator to place picked apples in a storage container, the secondary system catches and stores apples at the point of fruit separation in order to minimize path length and improve cycle time. The drop height for the previous design was variable and depended solely on the fruit’s height relative to the picking manipulator. The common reviewer feedback is to convert the 2-DOF articulated robotic arm from 2-dimensional motion to fully 3-dimensional motion to minimize the chance of damaging the fruit with bruising. The newly designed 3-dimensional catching robot consists of three revolute joints where the forward linkage is a parallelogram mechanism for keeping the catching end-effector parallel to the picking manipulator’s base. A virtual apple field of 505 apples, designed to test the picking abilities of 7 DOF arm, was used to determine the capabilities of this new catching arm design. The target catching efficiency was 90% for the provided virtual apple field with a maximum drop height of 30 cm. The target coordinates for each virtual apple were found by computer simulation in MATLAB. Geometric parameters were selected such that the catching manipulator could reach every possible drop position in the picking manipulator’s workspace. The design was completed, fabricated, and validated, utilizing the elegant mechanical linkage design. The workspace analysis showed that it had an acceptable 93% catching efficiency, and as the drop height increased, the efficiency approaches 100%. Definitive inverse-kinematics provided exact joint angles required to catch all catchable apples inside of the workspace. Using these angles, the general equation of motion, using Lagrangian mechanics, yielded the required torque outputs of each of the three motors on the arm. Validation of these torques through laboratory experimentation was considered adequate.
Download or read book Fundamentals of Agricultural and Field Robotics written by Manoj Karkee and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past century, mechanization has been an important means for optimizing resource utilization, improving worker health and safety and reducing labor requirements in farming while increasing productivity and quality of 4F (Food, Fuel, Fiber, Feed). Recognizing this contribution, agricultural mechanization was considered as one of the top ten engineering achievements of 20th century by the National Academy of Engineering. Accordingly farming communities have adopted increasing level of automation and robotics to further improve the precision management of crops (including input resources), increase productivity and reduce farm labor beyond what has been possible with conventional mechanization technologies. It is more important than ever to continue to develop and adopt novel automation and robotic solutions into farming so that some of the most complex agricultural tasks, which require huge amount of seasonal labor such as fruit and vegetable harvesting, could be automated while meeting the rapidly increasing need for 4F. In addition, continual innovation in and adoption of agricultural automation and robotic technologies is essential to minimize the use of depleting resources including water, minerals and other chemicals so that sufficient amount of safe and healthy food can be produced for current generation while not compromising the potential for the future generation. This book aims at presenting the fundamental principles of various aspects of automation and robotics as they relate to production agriculture (the branch of agriculture dealing with farming operations from field preparation to seeding, to harvesting and field logistics). The building blocks of agricultural automation and robotics that are discussed in the book include sensing and machine vision, control, guidance, manipulation and end-effector technologies. The fundamentals and operating principles of these technologies are explained with examples from cutting-edge research and development currently going on around the word. This book brings together scientists, engineers, students and professionals working in these and related technologies to present their latest examples of agricultural automation and robotics research, innovation and development while explaining the fundamentals of the technology. The book, therefore, benefits those who wish to develop novel agricultural engineering solutions and/or to adopt them in the future. .
Download or read book Sustainable Horticultural Systems written by Dilip Nandwani and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-10-14 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sustainable horticulture is gaining increasing attention in the field of agriculture as demand for the food production rises to the world community. Sustainable horticultural systems are based on ecological principles to farm, optimizes pest and disease management approaches through environmentally friendly and renewable strategies in production agriculture. It is a discipline that addresses current issues such as food security, water pollution, soil health, pest control, and biodiversity depletion. Novel, environmentally-friendly solutions are proposed based on integrated knowledge from sciences as diverse as agronomy, soil science, entomology, ecology, chemistry and food sciences. Sustainable horticulture interprets methods and processes in the farming system to the global level. For that, horticulturists use the system approach that involves studying components and interactions of a whole system to address scientific, economic and social issues. In that respect, sustainable horticulture is not a classical, narrow science. Instead of solving problems using the classical painkiller approach that treats only negative impacts, sustainable horticulture treats problem sources.
Download or read book Ground and Air Robotic Manipulation Systems in Agriculture written by Andrey Ronzhin and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-09-10 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Problems of joint application of heterogeneous ground and air robotic means while performing the agricultural technological tasks that require physical interaction with agricultural products and the environment are discussed in the book. Proposed solutions for the exchange of energy and physical resources of unmanned aerial vehicles on ground service platforms, automation of the process of collecting agricultural products and ensuring the stability of the air manipulation system at physical interaction with a ground object are important for the transport and agricultural industry robotization. The book addresses the researchers investigating interdisciplinary issues of agricultural production robotization, problems of information, physical and energy interaction of ground and air robots; recommended to postgraduates and students studying "Mechatronics and robotics" and "Technologies, mechanization and power equipment in agriculture, forestry and fisheries."
Download or read book Fruit and Vegetable Processing written by Wim Jongen and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2002-08-13 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fruit and vegetables are both major food products in their own right and key ingredients in many processed foods. There has been growing research on their importance to health and techniques to preserve the nutritional and sensory qualities desired by consumers. This major collection summarises some of the key themes in this recent research.Part one looks at fruit, vegetables and health. There are chapters on the health benefits of increased fruit and vegetable consumption, antioxidants and improving the nutritional quality of processed fruits. Part two considers ways of managing safety and quality through the supply chain. A number of chapters discuss the production of fresh fruit and vegetables, looking at modelling, the use of HACCP systems and ways of maintaining postharvest quality. There are also two chapters on instrumentation for measuring quality. Two final chapters look at maintaining the safety and quality of processed fruit and vegetables. Part three reviews technologies to improve fruit and vegetable products. Two chapters consider how to extend the shelf-life of fruits and vegetables during cultivation. The following three chapters then consider how postharvest handling can improve quality, covering minimal processing, new modified atmosphere packaging techniques and the use of edible coatings. Two final chapters discuss two major recent technologies in processing fruit and vegetables: high pressure processing and the use of vacuum technology.With its distinguished editor and international team of contributors, Fruit and vegetable processing provides an authoritative review of key research on measuring and improving the quality of both fresh and processed fruits and vegetables. - Reviews recent research on improving the sensory, nutritional and functional qualities of fruit and vegetables, whether as fresh or processed products - Examines the importance of fruits and vegetables in processed foods and outlines techniques to preserve the nutritional and sensory qualities desired by consumers - Discusses two major technologies in processing fruits and vegetables: high pressure processing and the use of vacuum technology
Download or read book Fruits and Nuts written by Chittaranjan Kole and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-03-06 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Fruits and Nuts" form the largest group among crop plants. Several constraints such as long life cycle have caused comparatively slow research progress in the past. The chapters on 20 fruit and nut crops authored by 56 renowned scientists from 12 countries include for the first time comprehensive reviews on a variety of fruits and nuts. The huge amount of information hitherto dispersed in journals is now available in a clearly structured reference work.
Download or read book Food Bioactives written by Munish Puri and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-04-07 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on various types of bioactive compounds, including secondary metabolites, oligosaccharides, polysaccharides, flavonoids, peptides/proteins, carotenoid pigments, quinones, terpenes, and polyunsaturated fatty acids, and presents an overview of their nutraceutical activities. It covers the current status and future potential of food compounds, as well as extraction technologies for bioactives derived from plant, fungi and marine-derived bioactive agents. Finally, health-promoting effects of plant, fungi and marine-derived bioactive agents are discussed. Chapters come from top researchers in this area from around the globe. The volume caters to the needs of undergraduate and post-graduate students in the area of food biotechnology, food bioprocessing, biotechnology, food engineering, etc., and also contains information pertinent to researchers.
Download or read book Plant Aging written by Roberto Rodríguez and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many, the terms aging, maturation and senescence are synonymous and used interchangeably, but they should not be. Whereas senescence represents an endogenously controlled degenerative programme leading to plant or organ death, genetiC aging encompasses a wide array of passive degenerative genetiC processes driven primarily by exogenous factors (Leopold, 1975). Aging is therefore considered a consequence of genetiC lesions that accumulate over time, but by themselves do not necessarily cause death. These lesions are probably made more severe by the increase in size and complexity in trees and their attendant physiology. Thus while the withering of flower petals following pollination can be considered senescence, the loss of viability of stored seeds more clearly represents aging (Norden, 1988). The very recent book "Senescence and Aging in Plants" does not discuss trees, the most dominant group of plants on the earth. Yet both angiospermic and gymnospermic trees also undergo the above phenomena but less is known about them. Do woody plants senesce or do they just age? What is phase change? Is this synonymous with maturation? While it is now becoming recognized that there is no programmed senescence in trees, senescence of their parts, even in gymnosperms (e. g. , needles of temperate conifers las t an average of 3. 5 years), is common; but aging is a readily acknowledged phenomenon. In theory, at least, in the absence of any programmed senescence trees should -live forever, but in practice they do not.
Download or read book Area Wide Control of Insect Pests written by M.J.B. Vreysen and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-10-30 with total page 758 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Insect pests are becoming a problem of ever-more biblical proportions. This new textbook collates a series of selected papers that attempt to address various fundamental components of area-wide insect pest control. Of special interest are the numerous papers on pilot and operational programs that pay special attention to practical problems encountered during program implementation. It’s a compilation of more than 60 papers authored by experts from more than 30 countries.
Download or read book The U S Produce Industry and Labor written by Linda Calvin and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 57 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fruit and vegetable production is a labor-intensive process, and over half of the hired workers employed by growers are believed to be unauthorized immigrants. Reforms to immigration laws, if they reduce the labor supply, may increase the cost of farm labor. The authors of this report assess how particular fruit and vegetable commodities might adjust if labor rates increased. Analysis of case studies suggests a range of possible adjustment scenarios, including increased mechanization for some crops, reduced U.S. output for a few crops, and increased use of labor aids to improve labor productivity for others. Charts and tables. This is a print on demand edition of an important, hard-to-find report.
Download or read book Sustainable Management of Arthropod Pests of Tomato written by Waqas Wakil and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2017-11-19 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sustainable Management of Arthropod Pests of Tomato provides insight into the proper and appropriate application of pesticides and the integration of alternative pest management methods. The basis of good crop management decisions is a better understanding of the crop ecosystem, including the pests, their natural enemies, and the crop itself. This book provides a global overview of the biology and management of key arthropod pests of tomatoes, including arthropod-vectored diseases. It includes information that places tomatoes in terms of global food production and food security, with each pest chapter including the predators and parasitoids that have specifically been found to have the greatest impact on reducing that particular pest. In-depth coverage of the development of resistance in tomato plants and the biotic and abiotic elicitors of resistance and detailed information about the sustainable management of tomato pests is also presented. - Provides basic biological and management information for arthropod pests of tomato from a global perspective, encompassing all production types (field, protected, organic) - Includes chapters on integrated management of tomato pests and specific aspects of tomato pest management, including within protected structures and in organic production - Presents management systems that have been tested in the real-world by the authors of each chapter - Fully illustrated throughout with line drawings and color plates that illustrate key pest and beneficial arthropods associated with tomato production around the world
