System Integration of an Automatic Citrus unshiu Harvesting Robot and a Method for Their Fruits Recognition

In recent years, the number of farm households in Japan has been decreasing due to the aging of farmers and the shift away of young labors, thus automation and labor saving are required as a solution. In this study, we propose an automatic harvesting robot for the purpose of automating harvesting, one of the tasks in Citrus unshiu cultivation. Previously, we proposed an end-effector consisting of a suction pad and scissors for automatic harvesting, one of the tasks in Citrus unshiu cultivation. In this paper, we report a system integration of a crawler-type mobile manipulator that mount an arm robot with the EE and automatically travel on slopes and uneven terrain in the field, also a method for recognizing Citrus unshiu using the Watershed algorithm that can separate and recognize the adjacent area of the target. This system is expected to enable night harvesting, which is expected to contribute to the sustainable development of agriculture.