A Smart robotic arm for harvesting olive fruits

Abstract

This work introduces a smart robotic arm for harvesting olive fruits. The work started by planning the main steps. After deciding on the robot concept design, a kinematic and dynamic analysis is conducted. Based on the results of the analysis, a simulation is performed to determine the required specifications of the main components. Based on these results, an experimental model of the robot arm is designed, built, configured, and tested, where the model yielded good results. The next step is to configure and test different types of end effectors. In order to make the harvesting process effective for olive trees, picking a single fruit each time is not practical. Therefore, the procedure adopted in this work focuses on picking a group of fruit in each stroke. The harvesting system consists of a robotic arm guided by a stereovision camera to enable 3-D vision. Once the fruits location is detected, a reverse kinematics algorithm is initiated, yielding 3-points coordinates. These coordinates are commanded to the manipulator to move to the location and performs the picking process. Further developments will include building a larger manipulator that can reach out to all parts of a regular tree.