Status and Scope of Automated Coconut Harvester in India: A Review

Abstract

Coconut plays a substantial role in the Indian economy. South Indian states, namely Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh are the leading producers accounting for more than 90% of the total coconut produced in the country. The traditional/conventional process of coconut harvesting includes climbing on the tree and cutting the coconut bunches with a cutter, which involves high risk. Climbing on a coconut tree is the main risk factor and it is life-threatening. The present review paper presents the status and future research need for automated coconut harvesting machines in India. The maximum speed or climbing with remote controlled coconut harvester was reported 0.055 ms-1. This paper also focuses on the basic components of the automated coconut harvesting machine, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each component are critically analyzed based on its findings, future research needs are proposed in order to meet all the fundamental aspects of autonomous coconut harvesting machines.