Abstract
When an octopus grasps something, the rigidity of its tentacle can change greatly, which allowing for unlimited freedom, agility, and precision. Inspired by this, a three-finger flexible bionic robot gripper was designed for apple picking. First, a flexible chamber finger was designed to drive the gripper finger to elongate, shorten, and bend, which works through a process of inflating and deflating. Further, we proposed a three-finger mode to achieve two kinds of motion states: grasping and relaxing, by simulating the movement of an octopus grasping at something. In this paper, we evaluated the bending property of the designed flexible bionic gripper through an apple grasping experiment. The experimental results show that the 100.0 g bionic gripper can load an apple with a weight of 246.5~350.0 g and a diameter of 69.0~99.0 mm, and the grasping success rate is 100%. It has a good grasping performance. Compared to other soft grippers, the proposed bionic flexible gripper has the advantages of being lightweight, and having good cushioning, low driving air pressure, and a strong grasping force.
Highlights
The apple is one of the most common fruits, which possesses huge consumer market, and is available in various kinds, and different weights and sizes
The movement pattern of octopus tentacles is from the roots to the ends, which is a kind of mobile bending
The temchambers, and thickness of chambers) that affect the length of the finger were compared, perature was maintained at 25 °C, and the humidity at 80%
Summary
The apple is one of the most common fruits, which possesses huge consumer market, and is available in various kinds, and different weights and sizes. The traditional artificial approaches for picking and sorting imply a shape evaluation process, and the fruit pickers sort fruits by judging their shape, weight, and rough skin conditions, causing a huge workload in this process. In order to solve the objective problems, including huge workload, low efficiency, and high cost involved in manual picking and sorting operations, agricultural picking and sorting robots have emerged, becoming one of the research hotspots in the field of artificial intelligence agriculture. Since the growing environment of apples is complex, their skin is fragile, and their shape is complex and changeable, it is easy to cause damage to the fruit in the process of picking and sorting, affecting the quality, storage, and transportation of apples, and harming the market price and economic benefits. Ma Lvzhong et al [3]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
