Picking Apples

Labor issues continue to plague the tree fruit industry. Hands are the natural way to pick fruit from trees but when there aren't enough hands the industry suffers. Changki Mo, WSU Tri-Cities assistant professor of mechanical engineering has been working to bring robotic picking of apples to the forefront.

MO: We are about done with the laboratory scale tests and then we will try the field tests this fall so we are kind of expecting some kind of adjustments of our designs and collaborate with other teams.

Mo's team is working on the grasping aspect of the robotics but a robot picker also has to be able to "see" where the apples are located and that part of the project is being tackled by the motion vision team in Prosser.

MO: The one team actually understand the growth habits of the apples and then what's the dynamics of the apple picking movements and in terms of that information we actually design the end factor. I'm kind of focusing on the how the end factor is simple and low cost

The grasping end of the robot has to be able to successfully grab, hold and pick the apple without dropping or crushing it.

MO: So what we usually do was we measured all kinds of the normal force when the apple, picker, the professional pickers pick the apple so based on that information we applied that to the robot.

That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.