DESIGN AND EXPERIMENT OF A MOREL PICKING MACHINE

摘要

To address the challenges of high labor intensity and expensive manpower in morel harvesting, a specialized morel picking machine was designed. It is capable of performing the tasks of grasping, cutting, and collecting morels. A three-degree-of-freedom robotic arm was incorporated to ensure precise positioning of the picking claw. The kinematic model of this arm was established to determine the operational radius for effective picking. A three-finger picking claw was developed, with the synchronous opening and closing of the three fingers through a wire-pulling mechanism and a four-bar linkage. Buffer elastic material was installed on the picking fingers, and cutting blades were placed at the fingertips. Simulation analyses were conducted to study the movement of the robotic arm’s end, the forces acted on the picking arm, the hinge between the upper and lower arms, and the hinge at the lower arm’s end, as well as the velocity of the picking claw’s end. Single-factor experiments were employed to investigate the effects of the blade length of the picking finger on the picking success rate, the damage rate of mature morels, and the damage rate of immature morels. The results demonstrated that with a blade length set at 15mm, the picking success rate reached 96.2%, while the damage rates of mature and immature morels were 8.6% and 6.8%, respectively. These findings indicate that the machine can effectively meet the operational requirements for morel picking.