Abstract
To mitigate the large demand for safflower picking labour and the low efficiency of manual picking, a safflower picking robot that is based on a parallel manipulator is designed. The whole robot mainly consists of a walking device, parallel manipulator device, vision device, picking device, filament collection device, control system, and motor drive system. The forward and inverse kinematics analysis of the parallel manipulator is analysed via a geometric method, the kinematics model is established, and the computational analysis of the parallel manipulator working speed is based on the Jacobi matrix. For driving angle errors of 0.001∼0.005°, the moving platform's motion accuracy is 0.2174–0.9387 mm, which meets the position accuracy requirements of the test stage. Based on MATLAB software, the Monte Carlo method is employed to solve the working space of the parallel manipulator, which is approximately an equilateral triangle with a side length of 0.35 m, which satisfies the safflower growth space picking conditions. The prototype is constructed, and safflower picking experiments are carried out under laboratory conditions. The average picking period of each flower bulb was 16 s, and the average net picking rate of the filaments was 87.91%. The experimental results verified the applicability of the safflower picking robot.
Highlights
Safflower, known as a red and blue flower, is a special economic crop that integrates medicinal and oil plants and exhibits the promotion of blood circulation, clearing of blood stasis and relieving of pain (State Pharmacopoeia Committee, 2010)
The analysis of the results reveals that within the range of the drive angle error value from 0.001~0.005°, the calculated ideal motion accuracy of the parallel mechanism ranges from 0.2174–0.9387 mm, which has a small impact on the work effect of safflower picking and meets the position accuracy requirements of the test phase
A safflower picking robot based on a parallel manipulator is proposed, which has a simple and compact structure and a reasonable layout
Summary
Known as a red and blue flower, is a special economic crop that integrates medicinal and oil plants and exhibits the promotion of blood circulation, clearing of blood stasis and relieving of pain (State Pharmacopoeia Committee, 2010). According to the growth characteristics of safflower plants, each flower bulb had three batches of flowering time, and the flowering time of each batch was 4 to 5 days. The entire safflower silk picking cycle generally lasts from 12 to 16 days (Li & Li, 2011). Repeated harvesting has increased the working time and labour intensity of workers. The safflower harvesting time for the summer overlaps with the harvesting time of other cash crops. The labour supply exceeds the demand, and it is difficult to achieve an economic time-efficient harvesting effect. The problem of safflower harvesting is already imminent, and the realization of automation and mechanization of safflower picking is a necessary condition for vigorously developing the safflower industry
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