SEMI AUTOMATED COCONUT TREE CLIMBER

Abstract

Primary goal of the project is to design a coconut tree climbing device for farmers and residents. It is very difficult to climb on coconut tree manually due to the constant cylindrical structure and single stem. In other type of trees there will be branches for holding and to support the climber. A professional climber with proper training only be able to climb coconut tree. Due to the risk involved, nowadays a very few are coming forward to climb on coconut trees. Most of them hesitate. Agricultural workers employed for coconut tree climbing suffer musculoskeletal disorders than any other type of injury or illness. As the educational background of Indian youth is increasing, most of the people may hesitate to come in climbing profession. Considering this scenario, a device which helps the user to climb coconut tree easily will be useful for those having coconut cultivation as well as residents who is having less coconut trees. In this project, we aim to design a mechanism which is simple and easy to operate. For this we first made a rough sketch considering average diameter of a coconut tree as 30 cm and designed it in Solid Works. Later a static analysis was done using ANSYS to ensure its stability. After that we moved on to the fabrication part. The material used is GI steel. Three linear electrical actuators are used in this mechanism – two for gripping and one for the vertical up and down motions. Each actuator can carry up to 400kg. The analysis done using ANSYS proved the design to be safe and the fabrication was completed successfully.