CN113141872B

CN113141872B - Citrus picking method

Info

Publication number: CN113141872B
Application number: CN202110372502.7A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 李明; 肖旭; 黄晶晶; 贺敏中; 张洪铎
Original assignee: Hunan Agricultural Equipment Research Institute; Hunan Agricultural University
Current assignee: Hunan Agricultural Equipment Research Institute; Hunan Agricultural University
Priority date: 2021-04-07
Filing date: 2021-04-07
Publication date: 2022-05-17
Anticipated expiration: 2041-04-07
Also published as: CN113141872A

Abstract

The invention discloses an orange picking robot, an end effector thereof and an orange picking method, and aims to improve the success rate of orange picking. For this reason, the oranges and tangerines picking robot that embodiment one side provided of this application includes a picking section of thick bamboo and fruit stalk cutter, the front end of a picking section of thick bamboo is equipped with picks mouthful, be equipped with a plurality of grooving along its circumference equipartition on picking mouthful, every all be equipped with the fruit stalk cutter in the grooving, pick mouthful entangle during the oranges and tangerines, the fruit stalk of oranges and tangerines inserts in the grooving and can be cut off by the fruit stalk cutter.

Description

Citrus picking method

Technical Field

The invention belongs to the technical field of orange picking, and particularly relates to an orange picking robot, a terminal actuator of the orange picking robot and an orange picking method.

Background

The end effector of the citrus picking robot is a key core component for the intelligent picking robot to operate effectively, at the present stage, the end effector of the intelligent picking robot at home and abroad is complex in structure and is mostly provided with a force sensor and a touch sensor, and the action precision requirements of all levels of robot arms matched with the end effector are very high, so the cost of the end effector and the mechanical arms matched with the end effector is high.

Secondly, the current end effector adopts mechanical finger centre gripping fruit mostly, the action that the imitative people's hand upwards lifted plucks fruit, picking speed is slow, inefficiency, the phenomenon that is dragged off occasionally at the peel of fruit stalk contact department, the difficult preservation of injured oranges and tangerines, sell like greatly reduced, make the fruit grower suffer economic loss, simultaneously, the mode that the action that the adoption imitative hand upwards lifted was pulled by force drags, may break the branch, lead to the fruit tree injured, influence the harvest of citrus tree in the coming year, the operation effect of current end effector still remains to be improved greatly.

In addition, as the citrus grows in the crown of the citrus tree, the fruit shape is complex, the individual size difference is large, the growth direction is not fixed, and the fruit tree is provided with obstacles such as branches and leaves, the picking of the existing end effector by the clamping fingers is easy to fail due to uneven stress, and the picking missing rate of the existing end effector is high.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention mainly aims to provide an orange picking robot, a terminal actuator thereof and an orange picking method, and aims to improve the success rate of orange picking.

For this reason, this application embodiment provides a oranges and tangerines picking robot not end executor on the one hand, including picking a section of thick bamboo and fruit stalk cutter, the front end of picking a section of thick bamboo is equipped with picking mouth, be equipped with a plurality of grooving along its circumference equipartition on the picking mouth, every all be equipped with the fruit stalk cutter in the grooving, the picking mouth entangles during the oranges and tangerines, the fruit stalk of oranges and tangerines inserts in the grooving and can be cut off by the fruit stalk cutter.

Specifically, a finger is arranged between any two adjacent cutting grooves on the front end of the picking opening, a fruit stalk introduction groove communicated with the corresponding cutting groove is formed between the two adjacent fingers, and the width of the fruit stalk introduction groove is gradually narrowed from front to back.

Specifically, the fingers are sleeved with flexible damping sheaths.

Specifically, the fingers are arranged obliquely forwards towards the center of the picking cylinder.

Specifically, the bottom of the picking cylinder is provided with a fruit dropping opening.

Specifically, the fruit stem cutter is fixedly mounted on the cutter mounting hole through a bolt assembly in the cutter mounting hole on the picking cylinder.

Specifically, the tail end of the picking cylinder is provided with a mounting flange used for being connected with a mechanical arm of the citrus picking robot.

Specifically, reinforcing ribs are uniformly distributed on the tail end of the picking cylinder.

In another aspect, the present embodiments further provide a citrus picking robot including the above end effector, where the end effector is connected to a robot arm of the citrus picking robot.

Another aspect of the embodiments of the present application further provides a citrus picking method using the above citrus picking robot for picking, including the following steps:

the first step is as follows: firstly, adjusting a picking cylinder to an initial position by using a mechanical arm, and aligning the picking cylinder to the oranges to be picked in an axial, horizontal and forward direction;

the second step is that: the mechanical arm drives the picking cylinder to move towards the oranges, so that the oranges are sleeved in picking openings of the picking cylinder, and meanwhile, the fruit stalks enter the cutting grooves and are cut by the fruit stalk cutters in the cutting grooves; after the fruit stalk cutter cuts into the fruit stalks to a set depth, the end effector stops feeding movement, the mechanical arm drives the end effector to rotate reversely to a side with the cutting edges of the cutting grooves for a set angle, and the cutting edges of the fruit stalk cutter are used for further cutting the fruit stalks;

the third step: then the end effector is reversed and reset, at this time, the fruit stalks are completely broken under the action of bending shearing and cutting force, the oranges and the fruit stalks are completely separated, and the oranges and the fruit stalks fall into the picking cylinder;

fourthly, the mechanical arm drives the end effector to horizontally and axially retract to the initial position, and a next fruit picking instruction is entered.

Compared with the prior art, at least one embodiment of the invention has the following beneficial effects:

1. the cutting grooves are uniformly distributed around the circumference of the picking opening, so that fruit stalks can always enter one cutting groove no matter where the growing direction of the oranges and tangerines faces, the problem of missing picking is avoided, and the picking success rate can reach 100%.

2. The motion form of the end effector is simple, efficient picking of oranges can be achieved only through translation and rotation, the robot control program is simple, and the picking action of the end effector can be accurate, fast and stable; in addition, the end effector is not attached with any sensor and driving device, and the requirement on the action precision of the mechanical arm is not high, so that the manufacturing cost is greatly reduced, and the popularization and the promotion of the citrus picking robot are possible.

3. The picking cylinder of the end effector is provided with the fruit stem leading-in groove which is opposite to each cutting groove and is wide in front and narrow in back, and each finger is sleeved with the flexible damping sheath.

4. The end effector of the citrus picking robot can structurally achieve the purposes that the weight of the end effector is controlled within the load requirement range of the end mechanical arm and the torque resistance performance is high by selecting materials with light specific gravity and good strength and setting rib plates, removing materials and the like through appropriate processes.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention, the drawings needed to be used in the description of the embodiments will be briefly introduced below, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious for those skilled in the art to obtain other drawings based on these drawings without creative efforts.

FIG. 1 is a schematic structural view of an end effector provided by an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 2 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of a picking barrel provided by an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a schematic view of an end effector picking parallel movement according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a schematic view of an end effector picking rotation provided by an embodiment of the present invention;

wherein: 1. a picking cylinder; 2. a fruit stalk cutter; 3. picking ports; 4. grooving; 5. citrus; 6. fruit stalks; 7. dropping fruit; 8. a finger; 9. a fruit stalk leading-in groove; 10. a flexible damping sheath; 11. a cutter mounting hole; 12. a bolt assembly; 13. installing a flange; 14. and (7) reinforcing ribs.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are only a part of the embodiments of the present invention, and not all of the embodiments. All other embodiments, which can be derived by a person skilled in the art from the embodiments given herein without making any creative effort, shall fall within the protection scope of the present invention.

In the description of the present invention, it is to be understood that the terms "central," "longitudinal," "lateral," "length," "width," "thickness," "upper," "lower," "front," "rear," "left," "right," "vertical," "horizontal," "top," "bottom," "inner," "outer," "clockwise," "counterclockwise," "axial," "radial," "circumferential," and the like are used in the orientations and positional relationships indicated in the drawings for convenience in describing the invention and to simplify the description, and are not intended to indicate or imply that the referenced devices or elements must have a particular orientation, be constructed and operated in a particular orientation, and are therefore not to be considered limiting of the invention.

Furthermore, the terms "first", "second" and "first" are used for descriptive purposes only and are not to be construed as indicating or implying relative importance or implicitly indicating the number of technical features indicated. Thus, a feature defined as "first" or "second" may explicitly or implicitly include one or more of that feature. In the description of the present invention, "a plurality" means two or more unless specifically defined otherwise.

Referring to fig. 1-4, the citrus picking robot end effector provided by the embodiment of the application comprises a picking cylinder 1 and a fruit stem cutter 2, wherein a picking opening 3 is arranged at the front end of the picking cylinder 1, the tail end of the picking cylinder is used for being connected with a mechanical arm of the citrus picking robot, a plurality of cutting grooves 4 are uniformly distributed along the circumference of the picking opening 3, the fruit stem cutter 2 is arranged in each cutting groove 4, and when the picking opening 3 is used for sheathing citrus 5, fruit stems 6 of the citrus 5 can be inserted into the cutting grooves 4 and cut off by the fruit stem cutter 2.

In the end effector of the embodiment, the cutting grooves 4 are uniformly distributed around the circumference of the picking port 3, so that the fruit stalks 6 can always enter one cutting groove 4 no matter where the growing direction of the oranges faces, the problem of missing picking cannot exist, and the picking success rate can reach 100%.

In a specific design, the groove 4 can be formed by punching the groove body on the front end part of the picking opening 3 in a material removing mode, the fruit stalk cutters 2 are directly arranged at the bottom or the side part of the groove 4, the picking barrel 1 can be made of rigid materials, and the picked fallen citrus 5 enters the inner cavity of the picking barrel 1.

Referring to fig. 1 and 2, in addition, a fruit dropping opening 7 communicated with the inner cavity of the picking cylinder 1 can be further arranged at the bottom of the picking cylinder 1, and oranges 5 picked by the picking cylinder 1 can timely fall into the fruit receiving, sorting and packing boxes of the picking robot through the fruit dropping opening 7, so that the design has the advantages that the oranges cannot be accumulated in the picking cylinder 1 in a large amount, the weight of the whole picking cylinder 1 cannot be increased too much in the picking process, and the problem that the mechanical arm is deformed or even broken due to the fact that the weight of the end effector exceeds the load requirement of the mechanical arm cannot occur.

Referring to fig. 1 and 2, in some embodiments, a finger 8 is arranged between any two adjacent cutting grooves 4 on the front end of the picking opening 3, a fruit stalk introduction groove 9 communicated with the corresponding cutting groove 4 is formed between two adjacent fingers 8, and the width of the fruit stalk 6 introduction groove 9 is gradually narrowed from front to back.

Referring to fig. 1 and 2, in the embodiment, the fruit stalk introducing groove 9 is arranged at the front end of the picking cylinder 1, and the design that the front of the fruit stalk introducing groove 9 is wide and the back is narrow can ensure that the fruit stalks can be smoothly introduced into the cutting groove 4. In addition, a flexible damping sheath 10 can be arranged on each finger 8, and the arrangement of the flexible damping sheath 10 has the following advantages: since most of the gravity of the oranges acts on the fruit stalks 6, namely the oranges 5 are suspended on the fruit stalks 6, the oranges are beneficial to the fruits to enter the picking openings 3, and branches and leaves entering the fruit stalk guide grooves 9 cannot enter the cutting grooves 4 under the damping force action of the flexible damping sheaths 10, so that the branches and the leaves cannot be scratched by the cutters; in addition, the flexible damping sheath 10 has good elasticity, and can prevent the rigid finger 8 at the front end of the picking cylinder 1 from damaging the fruit head, branches and leaves.

In practical application, the flexible damping sheath 10 may be made of rubber or silica gel, and after the flexible damping sheath 10 is injection molded by a mold, the flexible damping sheath 10 is sleeved on the finger 8 by demolding, or the flexible damping sheath 10 is formed by directly spraying molten manufacturing raw materials on the outer surface of the finger 8 and cooling. As for the widths of the fruit stalk introduction groove 9 and the cutting groove 4, those skilled in the art can select the fruit stalk according to the type of the citrus to be used, and only the fruit stalk can smoothly enter the cutting groove 4, but the branch and the leaf cannot enter the cutting groove 4.

Referring to fig. 1 and 2, it will be appreciated that fingers 8 are disposed obliquely forwardly towards the centre of the picking drum 1, which is advantageous in that it prevents under-picked citrus fruit from falling out of the picking openings 3. In specific application, a cutter mounting hole 11 can be further formed in the picking barrel 1, the fruit stem cutter 2 is fixedly mounted on the cutter mounting hole 11 through a bolt component 12, the fruit stem cutter 2 is mounted on the picking barrel 1 through the bolt component 12, and the fruit stem cutter 2 is convenient to replace after being worn.

Specifically, the number of the fingers 8 is 3 to N, the fingers are distributed circumferentially, a group of cutter mounting holes 11 are formed in the direction, close to the inner side, of each finger 8 and used for mounting a fruit stem cutter 2, and a flexible damping sheath 10 is sleeved or sprayed on each finger 8. In addition, the tail end of the picking cylinder 1 can be further provided with a mounting flange 13 used for being connected with a mechanical arm of the citrus picking robot, when the end effector is mounted, the mounting flange 13 is aligned to a connecting hole in the mechanical arm, and then the end effector can be firmly mounted on the mechanical arm by screwing a flange bolt.

In another embodiment, reinforcing ribs 14 can be arranged on the tail end of the picking cylinder 1, and the number of the reinforcing ribs 14 is 2 to N, and the reinforcing ribs are uniformly distributed in the circumferential direction, so that the structural weight of the end effector is reduced, and the rotation torsion resistance of the end effector is increased.

In another aspect, the present embodiments also provide a citrus picking robot including the above end effector, where the end effector is connected to a robot arm of the citrus picking robot. Because the citrus picking robot of the application adopts the tail end executor of any one of the embodiments, the citrus picking robot at least has the beneficial effects of the tail end executor of the embodiments, and the description is omitted here.

Referring to fig. 3 and 4, in another aspect, the present embodiment further provides a citrus picking method using the citrus picking robot, including the following steps:

the first step is as follows: firstly, adjusting a picking cylinder 1 to an initial position by using a mechanical arm, wherein the picking cylinder 1 is axially, horizontally and positively aligned to oranges to be picked;

the second step is that: the mechanical arm drives the picking cylinder 1 to move towards the oranges, so that the oranges are sleeved in the picking openings 3 of the picking cylinder 1, and meanwhile, the fruit stalks enter the cutting grooves 4 and are cut by the fruit stalk cutters 2 in the cutting grooves 4; after the fruit stalk cutter 2 cuts into the fruit stalks to a set depth, the end effector stops feeding movement, the mechanical arm drives the end effector to rotate reversely to the side, with the cutting edge, of the cutting groove 4 by a set angle, and the cutting edges of the fruit stalk cutter 2 are used for further cutting the fruit stalks;

the third step: then the end effector reversely resets, the fruit stalks are completely broken under the action of bending shearing and cutting force, and the oranges and the fruit stalks are completely separated and fall into the picking cylinder 1;

In the citrus picking method, no sensor or driving device is attached to the end effector, and the picking motion modes of the end effector are two types: one is parallel movement, the other is axial rotation, the motion of the end effector is completely driven by the self action of the mechanical arm of the robot, the cost is greatly reduced, and the robot is convenient to popularize and popularize in citrus picking.

The specific picking process of the orange picking method is as follows:

when the citrus picking robot with the end effector picks citrus, the end effector is axially, horizontally and positively aligned to citrus to be picked, and the fruit dropping opening 7 is vertically downward and is driven by the mechanical arm, so that the end effector moves close to the citrus in a linear manner;

when the oranges enter the picking opening 3, the fruit stalks enter the fruit stalk guide grooves 9, the finger heads 8 are sleeved with the damping sleeves, so the fruit stalk guide grooves 9 have a damping effect, and the fruit stalk guide grooves 9 are uniformly distributed along the circumferential direction of the vertical surface, so the fruit stalks can always enter one fruit stalk guide groove 9 regardless of the growth direction of the oranges; meanwhile, part of the branches or leaves can also enter the fruit stalk leading-in groove 9; since most of the gravity of the oranges acts on the fruit stalks, which is equivalent to that the oranges are suspended on the fruit stalks, the fruits can enter the picking cylinder 1 and the fruit stalks can be smoothly guided into the cutting grooves 4, and branches and leaves entering the fruit stalk guide grooves 9 can not enter the cutting grooves 4 under the action of damping force, so that the damage to the branches and leaves in the picking process is avoided;

in the process that the fruit stalks enter the fruit stalk guide groove 9, the fruit stalks are cut into a certain depth by the cutting edges of the fruit stalk cutters 2, at the moment, the feeding motion of the end effector is stopped, the end mechanical arm drives the end effector to reversely rotate for a certain angle towards one side of the shearing groove 4 with the cutting edges, the angle value is 5-28 degrees, and the cutting edges of the fruit stalk cutters 2 have the effects of continuously cutting the fruit stalks and bending and breaking the fruit stalks; then the end effector reverses to return to the initial angle position, at this time, the fruit stalks are completely broken under the action of bending shearing and cutting force, and the fruits are separated from the fruit stalks; the fruits fall into a picking robot fruit receiving, sorting and boxing device through the inner cavity of the picking cylinder 1 and a fruit falling opening 7;

in emergency, the end effector is horizontally and axially retracted to the initial position, and then the next fruit picking instruction is carried out.

Any embodiment disclosed herein above is meant to disclose, unless otherwise indicated, all numerical ranges disclosed as being preferred, and any person skilled in the art would understand that: the preferred ranges are merely those values which are obvious or representative of the technical effect which can be achieved. Since the numerical values are too numerous to be exhaustive, some of the numerical values are disclosed in the present invention to illustrate the technical solutions of the present invention, and the above-mentioned numerical values should not be construed as limiting the scope of the present invention.

Meanwhile, if the invention as described above discloses or relates to parts or structural members fixedly connected to each other, the fixedly connected parts can be understood as follows, unless otherwise stated: a detachable fixed connection (for example using bolts or screws) is also understood as: non-detachable fixed connections (e.g. riveting, welding), but of course, fixed connections to each other may also be replaced by one-piece structures (e.g. manufactured integrally using a casting process) (unless it is obviously impossible to use an integral forming process).

In addition, terms used in any technical solutions disclosed in the present invention to indicate positional relationships or shapes include approximate, similar or approximate states or shapes unless otherwise stated. Any part provided by the invention can be assembled by a plurality of independent components or can be manufactured by an integral forming process.

The above examples are merely illustrative for clearly illustrating the present invention and are not intended to limit the embodiments. Other variations and modifications will be apparent to persons skilled in the art in light of the above description. Nor is it necessary or exhaustive for all embodiments. And obvious variations or modifications of the invention may be made without departing from the scope of the invention.

Claims

1. A citrus picking method is characterized in that an end effector is connected with a mechanical arm of a citrus picking robot for picking, the end effector comprises a picking cylinder (1) and a fruit stem cutter (2), a picking opening (3) is arranged at the front end of the picking cylinder (1), a plurality of cutting grooves (4) are uniformly distributed along the circumferential direction of the picking opening (3), the fruit stem cutter (2) is arranged in each cutting groove (4), and when the picking opening (3) is sleeved on citrus (5), fruit stems (6) of the citrus (5) are inserted into the cutting grooves (4) and can be cut off by the fruit stem cutter (2);

a finger (8) is arranged between any two adjacent cutting grooves (4) on the front end of the picking opening (3), a fruit stem introduction groove (9) communicated with the corresponding cutting groove (4) is formed between the two adjacent fingers (8), and the width of the fruit stem introduction groove (9) is gradually narrowed from front to back; the picking method comprises the following steps:

the first step is as follows: firstly, a mechanical arm is utilized to adjust a picking cylinder (1) to an initial position, and at the moment, the picking cylinder (1) is axially, horizontally and positively aligned to oranges needing to be picked;

the second step is that: the mechanical arm drives the picking cylinder (1) to move towards the oranges, so that the oranges are sleeved in a picking opening (3) of the picking cylinder (1), meanwhile, the fruit stalks enter the cutting grooves (4) and are cut by the fruit stalk cutters (2) in the cutting grooves (4), after the fruit stalk cutters (2) cut into the fruit stalks to a set depth, the end effector stops feeding movement, the mechanical arm drives the end effector to rotate reversely to the side, with the cutting edges, of the cutting grooves (4) by a set angle, and the fruit stalks are further cut by the cutting edges of the fruit stalk cutters (2);

the third step: then the end effector reversely resets, the fruit stalks are completely broken under the action of bending, shearing and cutting force, the oranges and the fruit stalks are completely separated, and the oranges and the fruit stalks fall into the picking cylinder (1);

2. A citrus picking process according to claim 1, characterised in that: the finger (8) is sleeved with a flexible damping sheath (10).

3. A citrus picking process according to claim 1 or 2, characterised in that: the fingers (8) are arranged obliquely forwards towards the center of the picking cylinder (1).

4. A citrus picking process according to claim 3, characterised in that: the bottom of the picking cylinder (1) is provided with a fruit dropping opening (7).

5. A citrus picking process according to claim 3, characterised in that: the fruit stem cutter is characterized in that a cutter mounting hole (11) is formed in the picking cylinder (1), and the fruit stem cutter (2) is fixedly mounted on the cutter mounting hole (11) through a bolt component (12).

6. A citrus picking process according to claim 3, characterised in that: the tail end of the picking cylinder (1) is provided with a mounting flange (13) which is used for being connected with a mechanical arm of the orange picking robot.

7. A citrus picking process according to claim 6, wherein: reinforcing ribs (14) are uniformly distributed on the tail end of the picking cylinder (1).