Chrysanthemum Cutting Sticking Robot System

Abstract

Cutting sticking operation is essential on a chrysanthemum production to enhance its productivity. Since it is said that several hundred chrysanthemum seedlings are produced in a year in Japan, it takes a long time and much labor to do the sticking operation and automation of the monotonous operation is desired. A robotic cutting sticking system mainly consisted of four sections; a cutting providing system, a machine vision system, a leaf removing device, and a sticking device. First, a bundle of cuttings was put into a water tank. The cuttings were spread out on the water by vibration of the water tank. The cuttings were picked by a manipulator based on information of cutting positions from a TV camera and sent them one by one to next stage. Secondly, another TV camera detected the position and orientation of the transported cutting and indicated a grasping point in the cutting stem for another manipulator moving. Thirdly, the manipulator moved the cutting to a sticking device through a leaf removing device to cut lower leaves, and then 10 cuttings were stuck into a tray at a time.