An Electric Gripper for Picking Brown Mushrooms with Flexible Force and In Situ Measurement

Haonan Shi, Gaoming Xu, Wei Lu, Qishuo Ding () and Xinxin Chen
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Haonan Shi: Key Laboratory of Intelligent Agricultural Equipment of Jiangsu Province, College of Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210031, China
Gaoming Xu: College of Intelligent Manufacturing and Equipment, Jiangmen Polytechnic, Jiangmen 529090, China
Wei Lu: Key Laboratory of Intelligent Agricultural Equipment of Jiangsu Province, College of Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210031, China
Qishuo Ding: Key Laboratory of Intelligent Agricultural Equipment of Jiangsu Province, College of Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210031, China
Xinxin Chen: College of Agricultural Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212001, China

Agriculture, 2024, vol. 14, issue 7, 1-15

Abstract: As brown mushrooms are both delicious and beneficial to health, the global production and consumption of brown mushrooms have increased significantly in recent years. Currently, to ensure the quality of brown mushrooms, selective manual picking is required, and the delicate surface of the mushrooms must not be damaged during the picking process. The labor cost of picking accounts for 50–80% of the total labor cost in the entire production process, and the high-humidity, low-temperature plant environment poses a risk of rheumatism for the laborers. In this paper, we propose a novel underactuated gripper based on a lead screw and linear bearings, capable of operating with flexible force control while simultaneously measuring the diameter of the mushrooms. The gripper features three degrees of freedom: lifting, grasping, and rotation, and enabling it to approach, grasp, and detach the mushroom. A thin-film force sensor is installed on the inner side of the fingers to achieve accurate grip force measurement. The use of a PID algorithm ensures precise grip force control, thereby protecting the brown mushrooms from damage. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed gripper has a static grasping force error of 0.195 N and an average detachment force overshoot of 1.31 N during the entire picking process. The in situ measurement of the mushroom diameter achieves 97.3% accuracy, with a success rate of 98.3%. These results indicate that the gripper achieves a high success rate in harvesting, a low damage rate, and accurate diameter measurement.

Keywords: Agaricus bisporus; diameter measurement; force control; mushroom picking; flexible gripper (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: 2024
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