Abstract
Robotic apple harvesting requires the motion planning of a series of movements to perform the efficient picking of fruit without bruises.To optimize the picking motion of apple-harvesting robots and reduce the payload at the end of the robotic arm, this study establishes a finite element model of the branch-stem-apple system.A four-factor, three-level simulation experiment is designed to investigate the horizontal velocity, vertical velocity, bending angular velocity, and torsional angular velocity.The analysis of variance (ANOVA) and response surface methodology (RSM) analysis reveal that the four factors significantly influence the fruit detachment force.By minimizing the fruit detachment force, the simulation results of the optimized parameters suggest that horizontal pulling with bending is the optimized picking motion.The optimized parameters were tested in both simulation and field verification trials, demonstrating a high degree of consistency between the predicted detachment force and experimental measurements without causing fruit bruising during the picking process.