Design and test of pineapple harvesting manipulator

Pineapple harvest is a pretty heavy job and it is in great need to automate the harvesting process. This paper presented a kind of manipulator designed for pineapple harvest and the test was conducted to validate its feasibility. Based on the growth characteristics of the fruit, two steps were determined for the harvest operation, catching the fruit and holding it steadily in horizontal direction first, and then harvesting it by rotating in vertical direction. The manipulator was designed by using professional mechanical design software Pro/E, which consists of three parts, the grabbing mechanism, the hand driving mechanism and the rotating mechanism. A control system based on AT89C51 microcontroller was designed to control two stepping motors, which can finish the whole harvest process. The experimental results showed that, the designed manipulator can realize the harvest operation with the control system. The max rotation angle is 180°and the harvest duration is 21-24 s. The research can provide a reference for the development of pineapple harvesting robots.