project - Research and innovation
Robots to test fruit ripening state
Robots to test fruit ripening state
Objectives
The ripening stage of fruit determines its price and the market where it can be sold (domestic/export). Ripening stage was traditionally measured with methods that required skilled workers and destroyed the fruit. This only allowed testing a few samples and it increased the costs of food processing. There are methods that use computer vision to analyse the colour of the fruit, but their efficiency is affected by different shapes and sizes of the fruit. The combination of optical and tactile sensors in a robotic arm can determine fruit ripening more accurately.
Objectives
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Activities
The project RTA2012-00062-C04-00, funded by the Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA), was carried out by Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias (IVIA) and Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV). Two optic sensors measuring both visible and infra red radiation were installed in a robotic arm with grippers that incorporated tactile sensors. The combination of the 3 sensors can retrieve measurements of colour and firmness of the fruit. The device was tested in 275 mangoes that were ripened in a storage chamber. Every 3 days, batches of 45 mangoes were measured both with the sensors of the robotic arm and with traditional destructive methods.
The data obtained were used to calibrate the sensors of the robotic arm. Fruit grippers installed in the robotic arm produce less damage to the fruit in comparison to traditional suckers of fruit handling machinery. The calibrated sensors accurately determined the ripening state of the mangoes in 80 % of the cases, outperforming the accuracy of the optic sensors used alone which was 70% and 60% respectively.
The combination of sensors in a robotic arm allows classifiying the fruit according to its ripening stage during harvest, reducing processing time and steps. As the method is non destructive, every fruit can be measured resulting in better quality control while minimising fruit damage due to the grippers of the robotic arm. These innovations result in lower costs due to processing, fruit damage, or uneven quality of the product.
Activities
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Project details
- Main funding source
- Other public (national, regional) research funds
- Agricultural sectors
- Fruits
1 Practice Abstracts
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