Recipient Organization
Geo-Spider, Inc
4406 NW 77 Terrace
Gainesville,FL 32606
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Numerous challenges face the Florida and U.S. citrus industries, including global market pressure, urban and environmental pressures, labor issues, and emerging diseases and pests, thus underscoring the need for new production approaches. Over the last decade, over 200,000 acres of Florida citrus production has been lost due to the citrus canker eradication program and citrus greening known as HLB. HLB is now considered endemic in Florida and hundreds of thousands of acres are in step decline, with minimal hope of finding remediation solutions. Long term hope rests on finding HLB resistant varieties, and developing advanced management strategies that can control the psyllid population, repel them from groves, and manage trees in an optimal economic framework. One approach being considered is Advanced Production Systems (APS) that use high density semi-dwarfed trees, and open hydroponics with optimized nutrient and water availability, which accelerates plant growth. When combined with HLB tolerant rootstocks, the concept seeks to increase yield production per acre, while simultaneously shortening the time to return on investment, which means that grove life can be shortened by disease pressure and still remain viable economically. However, this new grove architecture will require new equipment systems to manage production and harvesting. The concept proposed by GeoSpider, Inc. will offer a broad range of production and harvesting implements, such as mass and selective harvesting, spraying, hedging, and mowing.In this Phase I project, we will advance a strategic aspect of selective harvesting which will improve harvestability of fresh market fruit. An integrated hybrid harvesting arm will be developed to selectively remove fruit on the canopy surface or within the canopy interior. We believe that a hybrid arm that takes advantage of the speed, strength and accuracy of an articulated manipulator, coupled with the dexterity improvements of hyper-redundant manipulators will have unique performance characteristics. Scalability must be kept in mind since it is likely that each mobile harvester will carry 4 to 8 harvesting arms, thus multiplying the harvesting throughput, but at the same time increasing the complexity of workspace planning and collision avoidance. Leveraging prior research by the University of Florida PI's, GeoSpider, Inc will further develop a serial link maco-positioning manipulator equipped with a hyper-redundant forearm. Foundational controls will be developed for this Phase I prototype to demonstrate proof of concept in a laboratory setting at the UF citrus harvesting laboratory. Appropriate experimental methods will be implemented to evaluate the hybrid manipulator's performance in terms of; 1) workspace reach, 2) dexterity, 3) harvesting cycle speed, 4) stability, and 5) end point precision.
Animal Health Component
75%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
0%
Applied
75%
Developmental
25%
Goals / Objectives
The Florida citrus industry is facing growing global market pressures that threaten its long-term viability.The combination of low commodity prices both domestically and abroad, high U.S. labor prices and low labor productivity present significant challenges for the U.S. citrus industry.Over the last decade, over 200,000 acres of Florida citrus production has been lost due to the citrus canker eradication program and citrus greening known as HLB. While citrus canker is a significant threat to fresh citrus marketability, canker does not affect the quality of processed fruit. HLB, on the other hand, if left unchecked, kills an infected mature tree within 5 years and threatens the survival of the entire Florida Citrus Industry.Long term hope rests on finding HLB resistant varieties, and developing advanced management strategies that can control the psyllid population, repel them from groves, and manage trees in an optimal economic framework.One approach being considered is Advanced Production Systems (APS) that use high density semi-dwarfed trees, and open hydroponics with optimized nutrient and water availability, which accelerates plant growth. When combined with HLB tolerant rootstocks, the concept seeks to increase yield production per acre, while simultaneously shortening the time to return on investment, which means that grove life can be shortened by disease pressure and still remain viable economically. However, this new grove architecture will require new equipment systems to manage production and harvesting.Autonomous operations and equipment are well suited to APS, which, in tree crops, necessarily involve closely spaced smallish plants. Such trees have known efficiencies in their cultural and harvesting management and constitute ideal orchard systems for easy autonomous scouting, pruning, mowing, spraying, and harvesting.Robotic solutions for fresh market fruit and vegetable harvesting have been studied by numerous researchers around the world during the past several decades.Past robotic harvesting efforts have failed to achieve harvesting efficiencies greater than 70 to 80%. The majority of these inefficiencies can been attributed to interior fruit which are partially or totally occluded by leaf and limb obstructions, which reduces detection efficiency, obstructions which hinder reaching target, and gripper failure, all of which reduce harvesting efficiency.This projectfocuses on fresh fruit harvesting, where the fruit must be carefully handled to prevent bruising and punctures to the peel. The main objective of our research tasks is to develop a fresh market citrus harvester composed of a specialized selective harvesting end-effector, unique hyper-redundant harvesting arm, and a vision-based fruit localization and servo control.In the current Phase I proposal, we will be focusing on developing the harvesting arms that will be used to selectively remove fruit on the canopy surface and within the canopy interior We believe that a hybrid arm that takes advantage of the speed, strength and accuracy of an articulated manipulator, coupled with the dexterity improvements of hyper-redundant manipulators will have unique performance characteristics. To accomplish this we have identified a series of development tasks and goals with the primary focus being on developing and fabricating the hybrid harvesting arm and integrating it with the actuators, sensors and control system. We will then conduct prelimenary functionality tests to determine if it will be able to meet the design requirements.
Project Methods
This proposal focuses on fresh fruit harvesting, where the fruit must be carefully handled to prevent bruising and punctures to the peel. The main objective of our Phase I research tasks is to develop a fresh market citrus harvester composed of a specialized selective harvesting end-effector, unique hyper-redundant harvesting arm, and a vision-based fruit localization and servo control. In our future planned Phase II, we will integrate the Selective Harvesting components with the GroveMaster™ system platform equipped with a fruit handling system and conduct field trials.In the current proposal, we will be focusing on developing the harvesting arms that will be used to selectively remove fruit on the canopy surface and within the canopy interior We believe that a hybrid arm that takes advantage of the speed, strength and accuracy of an articulated manipulator, coupled with the dexterity improvements of hyper-redundant manipulators will have unique performance characteristics. The following development tasks will be explored.Revise design and fabricate forearm mechanical skeleton with integrated fluid powerDesign and fabricate the forearm stabilizing spring/damper assembliesIntegrate the mechanical/power/sensor components with the controllerIntegrate with the hydraulically actuated macro positioning manipulatorImplement the control and instrumentation scheme to be used during testingPerformance testing and analysisProduct evaluation, and revise commercialization plan.