Contents Chapter 1 History and Present Situations of Robotic Harvesting Technology: A Review 1 1.1 An Industry of Fresh-Eat Fruits and Vegetables and Its Labor-Cost Harvesting 1 1.2 The History and Current Situation of the Development of Robotic Harvesting Equipment in the Whole World 2 1.2.1 Tomato Harvesting Robots 2 1.2.2 Fruit Harvesting Robot for Orchards 15 1.2.3 Harvesting Robots for Fruits and Vegetables 38 1.2.4 Other Fruit Harvesting Robots 65 1.2.5 Other Harvesting Robots 74 1.3 Summary and Prospect 88 1.3.1 The Continuous Progress of Robotic Harvesting Technology 88 1.3.2 Technical Keys to the Development of Harvesting Robot Technology 89 1.3.3 The Historical Characteristics of the Technology Development of the Harvesting Robots 90 1.3.4 The Breakthrough Points of the Technology Development of Harvesting Robots 93 1.3.5 Key Fields of Technology Development of Harvesting Robots 95 References 95 Chapter 2 Damage and Damage-Free Harvesting in Robotic Operation 107 2.1 Cause of Fruit Damage in Robot Harvesting 107 2.2 Passive Compliant Structure in Robotic Harvesting 108 2.2.1 Elastic Surface Material 108 2.2.2 Under-Actuated End-Effectors 110 2.2.3 Elastic-Medium Fingers 112 2.3 Active Compliance Control in Robotic Harvesting 114 2.4 The Robotic Speedy Damage-Free Harvesting 118 2.4.1 The Significance and Particularity of Robotic Speedy Damage-Free Harvesting 118 2.4.2 The Particularity of the Collision in Robotic Speedy Gripping of Fruit 120 2.4.3 The Research System of Speedy Damage-Free Harvesting 121 References 123 Chapter 3 The Physical and Mechanical Properties of Tomato Fruit and Stem 127 3.1 Summary 127 3.1.1 Research Significance 127 3.1.2 Content and Innovation 127 3.2 The Physical/Mechanical Properties Index System of Tomato Fruit-Stem Related to Robotic Harvesting 128 3.3 Physical Properties of Tomato Fruit and Stem 129 3.3.1 Structure of Tomato Fruit and Stem 129 3.3.2 Physical Property of Tomato Fruit and Stem 131 3.4 Mechanical Properties of Tomato Fruit Components 134 3.4.1 Material, Equipment, and Method 134 3.4.2 Results and Analysis 143 3.5 Compressive Mechanical Properties of the Whole Tomato 148 3.5.1 The Compression Force-Deformation Properties 148 3.5.2 Creep Properties 153 3.5.3 Stress Relaxation Properties 155 3.5.4 Load-Unload Properties 157 3.6 Frictional Mechanical Properties of Tomato Fruits 160 3.6.1 Static and Sliding Friction Coefficients 160 3.6.2 Measurement of Rolling Resistance Coefficient 163 3.7 Mechanical Structure Model of the Whole Tomato Fruit 164 3.7.1 The Wheel-like Simplification Mechanical Structure of Fruit 164 3.7.2 Mechanical Properties of Tomatoes with Different Numbers of Locules 166 3.8 Mechanical Damage in Tomato Fruits 176 3.8.1 Mechanical Damage Mechanism of Tomato Fruit 176 3.8.2 Physiological Change of Tomatoes After Being Compress 176 3.9 The Properties of Tomato Stem 184 3.9.1 Stem System 184 3.9.2 Mechanical Properties of Tomato Fruit System 186 3.9.3 Results 190 References 192 Chapter 4 Development of Damage-Free Hand-Arm System for Tomato Harvesting 197 4.1.1 Research Significance 197 4.1.2 Content and Innovation 197 4.2 Development of Damage-Free Harvesting End-Effector 198 4.2.1 System Scheme Design of Damage-Free Harvesting End-Effector 198 4.3 Motion Configuration Scheme 199 4.4 System Components of the End-Effector 213 4.4.1 Mechanism Design of End-Effector 214 4.4.2 Design of the Sensing System 223 4.4.3 Design of Control System 225 4.4.4 Design of Power Supply System 228 4.4.5 Structure Design of the End-Effector 230 4.4.6 Prototype and Its Performance Indicators 231 4.4.7 Upper Lower Type End-Effector 233 4.4.8 Passive-active Coupled Compliant End-Effector for Robot Tomato Harvesting 233 4.5 Damage-Free Harvesting Hand-arm System Based on Commercial Manipulator 236 4.5.1 Background and Needs 236 4.5.2 The Control System Structure of Commercial Manipulator 237 4.5.3 Control System Integration Between the Manipulator and the End-Effector 239 References 241 Chapter 5 Mathematical Modeling of Speedy Damage-Free Gripping of Fruit 247 5.1 Summary 247 5.1.1 Research Significance 247 5.1.2 Content and Innovation 247 5.2 Experiment of Speedy Fruit Gripping and Special Collision Characteristics 248 5.2.1 Experiment of Speedy Fruit Gripping 248 5.2.2 Collision Characteristics of Speedy Fruit Gripping 248 5.3 The Special Collision Issue of Speedy Fruit Gripping 250 5.4 Dynamic Characteristics in Different Phases of Speedy Fruit Gripping 250 5.5 Fruit Compression Model 252 5.5.1 The Viscoelastic Properties of Fruit and the Characterization of Constitutive Model 252 5.5.2 Burger’s Modified Model for Characterization of Creep Properties of Whole Fruit 256 5.6 Complex Collision Modelin Speedy Gripping of Fruit 263 5.6.1 Phase of Constant-Speed Loading and Phase of Stress Relaxing 263 5.6.2 Phase of Collision Decelerating 264 5.7 The Basic Law of Collision in Robotic Gripping of Fruit 265 5.7.1 The Law of Collision Force in Robotic Gripping of Fruit 265 5.7.2 The Influence oflnitial Gripping Speed and Fruit Ripeness on Gripping Collision Time 266 5.7.3 The Influence oflnitial Gripping Speed and Fruit Ripeness on Gripping Collision Deformation 267 5.7.4 The Influence oflnitial Gripping Speed and Fruit Ripeness on Peak Collision Force 268 5.8 The Theoretical Calculation of the Time Consumption of Gripping 270 5.8.1 The Stroke Composition of the Finger Gripping Process 270 5.8.2 Dimension Relation of Fruit Gripping with Robotic Fingers 271 5.8.3 The Time Consumption Composition of the Finger Gripping Process 272 5.8.4 Selection of Damage-Free Control Mode 272 5.8.5 Time Calculation of Damage-Free Gripping 273 5.9 Collision Stage 274 References 274 Chapter 6 Simulation of Damage-Free Robotic Gripping of Fruit 277 6.1 Summary 277 6.1.1 Research Significance 277 6.1.2 Content and Innovation 277 6.2 Finite Element Model of Fruit 278 6.2.1 Viscoelastic Finite Element Model of the Whole Tomato Fruit 278 6.2.2 Nonlinear Multi-component Finite Element Model of Tomato Fruit 288 6.3 Simulation of Static Gripping Process 289 6.3.1 Geometry Model Finger-Fruit Contacting Process 289 6.3.2 Creating Contact Pair 290 6.3.3 Model Verification Method 291 6.3.4 Prediction Method of Gripping Damage 292 6.3.5 The Component Stress Simulation of Different Loading Methods 298 6.4 Dynamic Simulation of Gripping Process 314 6.4.1 The Software Implementation of Dynamic Gripping 6.4.2 The Establishment of System Virtual Prototype for Gripping 315 6.4.3 Simulation Analysis of Tomato Fruit Gripping with the End-Effector 318 References 322 Chapter 7 Modeling of the Vacuum Sucked Pulling of Tomato Fruit 323 7.1 Summary 323 7.1.1 Function of Vacuum Sucked Pulling in Robotic Harvesting 323 7.1.2 Research Significance 324 7.1.3 Content and Innovation 325 7.2 Modeling of Mechanical Behavior for Sucking with Suction 7.2.1 Mechanical Relation Between Suction Pad and Spherical Surface 326 7.2.2 Experiment on Influence Factors of Suction Force 329 7.2.3 The Effect of Fruit Surface Contour on Pull-off Force 332 7.3 Mechanical Model of Vacuum Sucked Pulling 334 7.3.1 Kinematic and Force Balance Analyses of Pulling of On-plant Fruit with Suction Pad 334 7.3.2 Static Analysis of Pulling of On-plant Fruit with Suction Pad 335 7.3.3 Discussion 338 7.4 Probability Model of Sucked Pulling of On-plant Tomato 7.4.1 Rate oflnterference and Success of Fruit Gripping 345 7.4.2 The Proportion of Fruit Number Per Cluster for Different Harvesting Rounds 346 7.4.3 The Required Sucked Pulling Distance and Its Probability for Different Fruit Number in Each Cluster 349 7.4.4 Theoreticallnfluence of Required Sucked Pulling Distance on the Rate of Gripping Interference 360 7.4.5 Determination of Sucked Pulling Distance 361 References 363 Chapter 8 Fruit Detaching Methods for Robotic Damage-Free Tomato Harvesting 365 8.1 Summary 365 8.1.1 Research Significance 365 8.1.2 Content and Innovation 365 8.2 Theoretical and Experimental Comparison of Non-tool Fruit Detaching Methods 366 8.2.1 Non-tool Fruit Detaching Methods 366 8.2.2 Experiments of Non-tool Detaching of Tomato Fruit 367 8.2.3 Theory of Strength and Detachment of Abscission Layers 372 8.2.4 Discussion 374 8.3 Experimental Exploration of Laser Cutting of Stems 379 8.3.1 Put Forward Laser Cutting of Stems 379 8.3.2 The Principle and Advantages of Laser Cutting of Biomaterials 379 8.3.3 Particularity and Feasibility of Laser Cutting of Stem 382 8.3.4 Experiments on Laser Drilling and Cutting of Tomato Stems 382 8.3.5 Results and Discussion 386 8.3.6 Realization of Laser Cutting of Peduncles 393 8.4 Discussion 395 References 397 Chapter9 Control Optimization and Test Study 403 9.1 Summary 403 9.1.1 Research Significance 403 9.1.2 Content and Innovation 403 9.2 Parameter Optimization of Speedy Flexible Gripping 404 9.2.1 PID Parameter Adjustment of the Motion Control System 404 9.2.2 Energy Consumption Analysis of Acceleration and Deceleration Stage 415 9.2.3 Speed Optimization of Speedy Flexible Gripping 426 9.3 Control Optimization of Vacuum Sucked Pulling 432 9.3.1 The Relationship Between Maximum Pulling Speed and Displacement in Acceleration Stage 432 9.3.2 The Relationship Between the Dynamic Pulling Force and the Threshold of Vacuum Degree 437 9.3.3 0ptimization of Displacement/Position Parameters for Sucked Pulling of Fruit 438 9.3.4 0ptimization of Control Mode for Motion Coordination 442 9.4 Hand-Arm Coordination Control for Speedy Flexible Harvesting 445 9.4.1 Hand-Arm Coordinative Control Modes 445 9.4.2 Hand-Arm Coordinated Harvesting Experiments 447 References 452