Jangali, Rahul
- Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- University of Waikato
Abstract
This paper presents the development process of a robotic system designed for apple fruitlet thinning. The study details the selection process of key components and the refinement of finger profiles to enhance the system’s efficiency. The refinement of the end effector was achieved through extensive laboratory testing, demonstrating a 100% success rate in thinning single fruitlets within an operating approach angle range of 90 to 30 deg. Further testing on clustered fruitlets yielded high success rates at a 75 deg approach angle. Field trials conducted in a commercial orchard revealed a significantly lower success rate of 44%, various types of failure conditions are analysed and presented. These findings highlight the potential and challenges of deploying robotic solutions for high value crops from a controlled lab environment to a field.
Keywords
Robotic fruitlet thinning; end effector design; vision integrated automation; precision horticulture; field robotics
Published in
IFAC-PapersOnLine
2025, volume: 59, number: 23, pages: 72-77
Title: 8th IFAC Conference on Sensing, Control and Automation Technologies for Agriculture AGRICONTROL 2025 : Davis, California, U.S.A, August 27-29, 2025 :proceedings
Publisher: International Federation of Automatic Control
Conference
8th IFAC Conference on Sensing, Control and Automation Technologies for Agriculture AGRICONTROL 2025 Davis, California, U.S.A, August 27-29, 2025
SLU Authors
Nasirahmadi, Abozar
- Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
UKÄ Subject classification
Robotics and automation
Horticulture
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2025.11.766
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/145332