An autonomous robot for de-leafing cucumber plants in a high-wire cultivation system

The paper presents an autonomous robot for removing the leaves from cucumber plants grown in a high-wire cultivation system. Leaves at the lower end of the plants are removed because of their reduced vitality, their negligible contribution to canopy photosynthesis and their increased sensitivity for fungal diseases. Consuming 19% of the total labour input, leaf removal is considered by the growers and their staff as a tedious, repetitive and costly task. Automation alleviates their job and results in a significant cost reduction. Additionally, removal of the leaves results in an open structure of the canopy in which the fruit is clearly visible and accessible which is an advantage for automatic cucumber harvesting. The paper describes a functional model and results of a field test of the de-leafing robot. The field test confirmed the feasibility of the concept of the de-leafing robot

An information based systematic design method for robotics in greenhouses

The paper presents an information based systematic design method for robotics in greenhouses. The method was used to develop a de-leafing robot in a period of one year with a limited budget. This robot is used in this paper as a design example. This approach proved to be a success. The design methodology enabled the efficient design of a complex machine. Bottlenecks were identified at an early stage. The methodology produced insight into design alternatives, thus limiting trial and error. Within one year the de-leafing robot was tested in a greenhouse, with success

An Autonomous Robot for De-leafing Cumcumber Plants grown in a High-wire Cultivation System

The paper presents an autonomous robot for removing the leaves from cucumber plants grown in a high-wire cultivation system. Leaves at the lower end of the plants are removed because of their reduced vitality, their negligible contribution to canopy photosynthesis and their increased sensitivity to fungal diseases. Consuming 19% of the total labour input, leaf removal is considered by the growers and their staff as a tedious, repetitive and costly task. Automation alleviates their job and results in a significant cost reduction. The paper describes a functional model and preliminary results of a field test of a de-leafing robot. Despite the small number of repetitions during the field test, the favourable results confirmed the feasibility of the concept of the de-leafing robot. The vision system and manipulator control performed relatively well. However, particularly, the mechanics of the end-effector were failure prone and need re-engineering. With a cycle time of 140 s per two leaves on average, the execution time of the de-leafing robot is approximately 35 times slower than manual leaf picking. For economic feasibility this cycle time should be reduced

An information based systematic design method for robotics in greenhouses

The paper presents an information based systematic design method for robotics in greenhouses. The method was used to develop a de-leafing robot in a period of one year with a limited budget. This robot is used in this paper as a design example. This approach proved to be a success. The design methodology enabled the efficient design of a complex machine. Bottlenecks were identified at an early stage. The methodology produced insight into design alternatives, thus limiting trial and error. Within one year the de-leafing robot was tested in a greenhouse, with success