Soft Gripper for Robotic Harvesting in Precision Agriculture Applications

Navas, Eduardo; Fernández, Roemi; Sepúlveda, Delia; Armada, Manuel; Santos, P. González de

doi:10.1109/icarsc52212.2021.9429797

Cited by 18 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Soft robotics is an emerging class of robots that easily adapt their form and shape to external obstacles and constraints and can easily deform (see Figure 4 ) [ 8 ]. In contrast to traditional rigid machines, soft robots have unique soft-touch capabilities, which are desirable for weeding, irrigation, fruit picking, and seeding [ 34 , 80 , 82 ].…”

Section: Biomimetic Innovations and Climate-smart Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Navas et al [ 8 ] and Yan et al [ 83 ] concurred that soft robotic arms were better than traditional mechanical robots, vegetable and fruit grippers with rigid or underactuated grippers, which lacked precision control and often damaged the fruits. Mechanical damage to fruits and vegetables assumed different forms, such as surface bruises, rupture, crushing, plant tissue destruction, and plastic deformation.…”

Section: Biomimetic Innovations and Climate-smart Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Preliminary research conducted by Chowdhary et al (2019) showed that soft robotics (small bots with soft arms) could perform a wide range of complex tasks on farms. The commercial rollout of the soft robots is feasible, considering the robots are affordable and effective compared to the traditional hard robots [ 8 ]. Despite the huge potential of soft robotics in agriculture, the level of adoption remains low, and most projects are in the pilot phase, such as the swarm robotics for agricultural applications (SAGA) project [ 90 ] and Soft Robotics LLC’s SoftAI™ powered robotic solution, which combines AI, 3D vision, and IP69K-rated soft grasping technology [ 91 ].…”

Section: Biomimetic Innovations and Climate-smart Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The biomaterials have a wide array of potential applications that range from hydrogels for water storage, carbon capture, biodegradable materials for greenhouses, antimicrobial packaging for fruits and vegetables [ 5 , 6 , 7 ], and sustainable agriculture. This review focuses on soft robotics and swarm robotics, which hold great promise in harvesting, plant management, and seeding [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ]. The emphasis on soft robotics and robot-animal artifacts is expected to translate to a nuanced understanding of the benefits, technological challenges, and prospects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bio-Inspired Robots and Structures toward Fostering the Modernization of Agriculture

et al. 2022

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Biomimetics is the interdisciplinary cooperation of biology and technology that offers solutions to practical problems by analyzing biological systems and transferring their principles into applications. This review article focused on biomimetic innovations, including bio-inspired soft robots and swarm robots that could serve multiple functions, including the harvesting of fruits, pest control, and crop management. The research demonstrated commercially available biomimetic innovations, including robot bees by Arugga AI Farming and the Robotriks Traction Unit (RTU) precision farming equipment. Additionally, soft robotic systems have made it possible to mitigate the risk of surface bruises, rupture, the crushing destruction of plant tissue, and plastic deformation in the harvesting of fruits with a soft rind such as apples, cherries, pears, stone fruits, kiwifruit, mandarins, cucumbers, peaches, and pome. Even though the smart farming technologies, which were developed to mimic nature, could help prevent climate change and enhance the intensification of agriculture, there are concerns about long-term ecological impact, cost, and their inability to complement natural processes such as pollination. Despite the problems, the market for bio-inspired technologies with potential agricultural applications to modernize farming and solve the abovementioned challenges has increased exponentially. Future research and development should lead to low-cost FEA robotic grippers and FEA-tendon-driven grippers for crop harvesting. In brief, soft robots and swarm robotics have immense potential in agriculture.

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Section: Biomimetic Innovations and Climate-smart Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Biomimetic Innovations and Climate-smart Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Biomimetic Innovations and Climate-smart Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bio-Inspired Robots and Structures toward Fostering the Modernization of Agriculture

et al. 2022

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“…In this mode, the contact surface adapts to the object's shape variations in different dimensions, providing extensive coverage. Lastly, the fourth mode is FBC, represented by multi-angle, all-around encasement [15,[41][42][43][165][166][167][168][169][170][171][172][173][174][175][176] or continuous winding grasping [40,[177][178][179][180][181][182][183][184][185][186][187][188][189][190][191][192][193], aiming to achieve contact with the object over the largest possible area and multiple angles. These different contact and motion modes possess unique advantages of their own, and they are not mutually exclusive.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variable stiffness soft robotic gripper: design, development, and prospects

Shan,

Zhao,

Wang

et al. 2023

Bioinspir. Biomim.

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The advent of variable stiffness soft robotic grippers furnishes a conduit for exploration and manipulation within uncharted, non-structured environments. The paper provides a comprehensive review of the necessary technologies for the configuration design of soft robotic grippers with variable stiffness, serving as a reference for innovative gripper design. The design of variable stiffness soft robotic grippers typically encompasses the design of soft robotic grippers and variable stiffness modules.To adapt to unfamiliar environments and grasp unknown objects, a categorization and discussion have been undertaken based on the contact and motion manifestations between the gripper and the things across various dimensions: points contact (PC), lines contact (LC), surfaces contact (SC), and full-bodies contact (FBC), elucidating the advantages and characteristics of each gripping type. Furthermore, when designing soft robotic grippers, we must consider the effectiveness of object grasping methods but also the applicability of the actuation in the target environment. The actuation is the propelling force behind the gripping motion, holding utmost significance in shaping the structure of the gripper. Given the challenge of matching the actuation of robotic grippers with the target scenario, we reviewed the actuation of soft robotic grippers. We analyzed the strengths and limitations of various soft actuation, providing insights into the actuation design for soft robotic grippers. As a crucial technique for variable stiffness soft robotic grippers, variable stiffness technology can effectively address issues such as poor load-bearing capacity and instability caused by the softness of materials. Through a retrospective analysis of variable stiffness theory, we comprehensively introduce the development of variable stiffness theory in soft robotic grippers and showcase the application of variable stiffness grasping technology through specific case studies. Finally, we discuss the future prospects of variable stiffness grasping robots from several perspectives of applications and technologies.

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Robots in Laboratory Automation

2022

Devices and Systems for Laboratory Automation

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Soft Gripper for Robotic Harvesting in Precision Agriculture Applications

Cited by 18 publications

References 19 publications

Bio-Inspired Robots and Structures toward Fostering the Modernization of Agriculture

Bio-Inspired Robots and Structures toward Fostering the Modernization of Agriculture

Variable stiffness soft robotic gripper: design, development, and prospects

Robots in Laboratory Automation

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