Design and Test of a Pineapple Picking End-effector

In eastern China, pineapple harvesting is a complicated and sometimes dangerous task, and an effective method to harvest pineapples instead of picking them manually has not been developed. In this article, a pineapple picking end-effector based on the physical properties of pineapples (static friction characteristics and compressive properties) was designed. The fingers of the end-effector were used to capture a pineapple in the form of step-by-step movement to help reduce fruit damage and plant damage during picking. The indexes of the evaluation of the pineapple picking performance (fruit damage rate, plant damage rate, fruit fall rate and average picking time) were established, and the picking test was conducted at a pineapple plantation. The temperature effect was analyzed in the morning (19°C) and at noon (35°C). The temperature had no significant effect on the picking performance. The picking performance test showed that the size of the fruit might be the main cause of fruit damage. Throughout the picking test, the fruit damage rate was 5%, the plant damage rate was 0%, the fruit fall rate was 1.7%, and the average picking time of each fruit was 14.9 s. Keywords: Pineapple, Physical properties, End-effector, Low damage picking.