Soft gripper for small fruits harvesting and pick and place operations

Eduardo Navas; Redmond R Shamshiri; Volker Dworak; Cornelia Weltzien; Roemi Fernández

doi:10.3389/frobt.2023.1330496

Soft gripper for small fruits harvesting and pick and place operations

Front Robot AI. 2024 Jan 18:10:1330496. doi: 10.3389/frobt.2023.1330496. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Eduardo Navas¹, Redmond R Shamshiri^{2

3}, Volker Dworak², Cornelia Weltzien^{2

3}, Roemi Fernández¹

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Automation and Robotics (CAR) UPM-CSIC, Madrid, Spain.
² Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB), Potsdam, Germany.
³ Agromechatronics, Technische Universität Berlin, Potsdam, Germany.

Abstract

Agriculture 4.0 presents several challenges for the automation of various operations, including the fundamental task of harvesting. One of the crucial aspects in the automatic harvesting of high value crops is the grip and detachment of delicate fruits without spoiling them or interfering with the environment. Soft robotic systems, particularly soft grippers, offer a promising solution for this problem, as they can operate in unstructured environments, manipulate objects delicately, and interact safely with humans. In this context, this article presents a soft gripper design for harvesting as well as for pick-and-place operations of small and medium-sized fruits. The gripper is fabricated using the 3D printing technology with a flexible thermoplastic elastomer filament. This approach enables the production of an economical, compact, easily replicable, and interchangeable gripper by utilizing soft robotics principles, such as flexible structures and pneumatic actuation.

Keywords: 3D printing; agriculture 4.0; fruit harvesting; grasping; gripper; robotic device; robotic manipulation; soft robot.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The research leading to these results was supported in part by: (i) the Grant PID2020-116270RB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033; (ii) the Grant PDC2021-121578-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the “European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR”; (iii) the Grant TED2021-132710B-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the “European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR”; and (iv) CSIC under Grant 202350E072, Proyecto Intramural IAMC-ROBI-II (Inteligencia Artificial y Mecatrónica Cognitiva para la Manipulación Robótica Bimanual — 2º Fase).