A Multi-Flexible-Fingered Roller Pineapple Harvesting Mechanism

Tianhu Liu (), Wei Liu, Tingjun Zeng, Yifeng Cheng, Yan Zheng and Jian Qiu
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Tianhu Liu: College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, 483 Wushan Road, Guangzhou 510642, China
Wei Liu: College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, 483 Wushan Road, Guangzhou 510642, China
Tingjun Zeng: School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering, South China University of Technology, 381 Wushan Road, Guangzhou 510640, China
Yifeng Cheng: College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, 483 Wushan Road, Guangzhou 510642, China
Yan Zheng: College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, 483 Wushan Road, Guangzhou 510642, China
Jian Qiu: College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, 483 Wushan Road, Guangzhou 510642, China

Agriculture, 2022, vol. 12, issue 8, 1-19

Abstract: Research on the mechanical harvesting of pineapples is currently in its early stages. The purpose of this study is to provide a design and configure a method for multi-flexible-fingered roller pineapple harvester. Depending on the physical and mechanical characteristics of pineapples, the evaluation function for the critical damage condition of the fruit was established. Our experimental results revealed the optimal parameters for pineapple harvesting were as follows: the rollers of the harvesting mechanism should be inclined at 35°, the left flexible fingers should be 120 mm long, the gap between each of the left flexible fingers should be 30 mm, the length of the right flexible fingers should be 150 mm long, and the gap between each of the right flexible fingers should be 10 mm. The harvesting rate was 85% and the damage rate was 5% in the laboratory; in the natural environment, harvesting rate and damage rate were 78% and 8% respectively, and the harvesting speed was about 1 s per fruit, which demonstrated the harvesting machinery could sufficiently meet the usage demand of pineapple harvesting. In the cases of unsuccessful harvesting, failure resulted from mismatched flexible finger length, fruit size, and harvesting posture and position.

Keywords: agricultural machinery; mechanism; pineapple harvester; flexible fingers; roller (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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