Abstract:
Harvesting has been identified as one of the critical and resource consuming
operation because of several reasons especially inside polyhouse structures.
Knowledge of physical properties of crops and fruits like cucumber plays an
important role in the design and optimization of its machinery. Evaluation of these
properties like plant height, leaf numbers, leaf length, leaf width, fruit length and
width were taken for observation. It was seen that, these properties had a direct
impact on deciding the components of the harvester. Plant height determined the
height of the harvester; leaf parameters decided the obstacle parameters in the work
space. Fruit holding capacity of the cutting unit was depended on fruit parameters.
By analyzing all these data and the past work in the field of robotics, a preliminary
model of a harvester was fabricated. Out of the harvesters developed so far in the
field of agriculture, the most simple and economical method was selected for this
study. The principle of linear actuators was adapted for the design of the harvester by
incorporating screw rods and DC motors. The basic components for the harvester
were identified with three Degrees of Freedom.
contributes to the motion in X direction.
The moving unit with wheels
The vertical screw thread makes the
movement in Y direction and the horizontal unit gives the motion in Z direction. By
studying the biometric properties of plants and crops, the height of the harvester was
confined to 2 m, width of horizontal unit as 45 cm and the base platform with 45X45
cm. A control board was used for controlling the motors which causes motion for
the threaded rods.
Accordingly, a laboratory model was fabricated and its
functionality was tested.
It was found working successfully in the laboratory
conditions.
The current trend in high-tech agriculture is towards switching from a manual
system to automatic operations. Hence, the present study is a promising technology
that can be converted to a fully automatic machine with future developments.
