19th International Workshop on Robotics in Alpe-Adria-Danube Region – RAAD 2010 •June 23–25, 2010, Budapest, Hungary
A Setup of Mobile Robotic Unit for Fruit
Harvesting
A. A. Aljanobi*, S. A. Al-hamed*, and S. A. Al-Suhaibani*
* King Saud University/ Department of Agricultural Engineering, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
janobi@ksu.edu.sa, alhamed@ksu.edu.sa and suhaiban@ksu.edu.sa
Abstract—The description of a mobile robotic unit for fruit
harvesting was illustrated in this paper. The setup of the
system was developed to harvest date palm fruit which is the
most common fruit in Saudi Arabia. The system was based
on readymade industrial robotic arm.
I. INTRODUCTION
Fruit production is the most labors demanding due to
the lack of mechanization of harvesting and the short of
the harvesting season. Several attempts to mechanize fruit
harvesting specially by tree trunk shaking were achieved,
which affect the tree on the long run [1;2]. In the last
fifteen years, several works have been developed to design
robotic systems for harvesting fruits especially orange
[3;4] and apple [5;6]. These works did not succeed yet due
to the size of the machine and the cost of development. On
the other hand, several works have been done to develop
small robotic units for harvesting agriculture products in
greenhouse such as tomato and cucumber [7]. The
development of these systems was based on robotic arm
that can be guided to the right object through video
camera. Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 show the design of such system
for harvesting agricultural products in controlled
environment.
The robot arm can distinguish between fruits and
leaves by using video image capturing. The camera is
mounted on the robot arm, and the robot picks the
detected fruit based on image features. Air jet may be
used to blow leaves that hide the fruit. The shape of the
gripper depends on the fruit being picked, as some fruits,
such as plums, crush very easily, while others, like
oranges are not so susceptible to bruising. The robots
should have access to all areas of the orchard in order to
reach all of the fruit [8].
Figure. 1. The fundamental blocks of agricultural robots [8]
978-1-4244-6886-7/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE
Figure.2. A robotic arm for agricultural purposes [9]
An eggplant-harvesting robot achieved a harvesting
rate of 29.1%, averaging 43.2 seconds per fruit. The
stereoscopic vision system of the tomato-harvesting robot
could detect individual fruit, and detected the closest
ripened tomato with an accuracy of approximately 85%
[10].
Reference [11] stated that for automating the
harvesting operation, an intelligent robot that can emulate
the judgment of human labor is necessary. A robotic
harvesting system that performs recognition, approach,
and picking tasks should be developed. In order to
accomplish these tasks, three essential components
should be included in the system. First, a machine vision
algorithm combining a color segment operation and a
vertical dividing operation where the algorithm could
detect the fruit even under different light conditions.
Next, a visual feedback fuzzy control model to actuate a
manipulator should be designed. Furthermore, an end-
effector composed of a fruit-grasping mechanism, a size-
judging mechanism, and a peduncle-cutting mechanism
should be developed. These components should produce
enough force for grasping the fruit and cutting the tough
peduncle.
A procedure and the results of an optimal design of
the kinematic structure of a manipulator to be used for
autonomous cucumber harvesting in greenhouses was
identified. The design objective included the time needed
to perform a collision-free motion from an initial position
to the target position as well as a dexterity measure to
allow for motion corrections in the neighborhood of the
fruits. A four link PPRR type manipulator was found to
be most suitable. For cucumber harvesting four degrees-
of-freedom, i.e. three translations and one rotation around
the vertical axis, are sufficient [12].
The main objective of this work is to use a readymade
industrial small robotic arm for harvesting fruits in
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A. A. Aljanobi et al. • A Setup of Mobile Robotic Unit for Fruit Harvesting
uncontrolled environments. The date palm tree was
selected to apply this technique on due to it is the most
common fruit in Saudi Arabia where there are more than
23 million tree producing more than one million tons, and
the most costly in harvesting which my reach to half of the
production cost.
II. COMMON METHODS OF DATE HARVISTING
The unique nature of date palm tree, require highly
labor-intensive orchard operation under hazardous
condition. As all of the fruits in a bunch do not ripen at
the same time, it is necessary to make several picking
during the short season [13]. Harvesting has historically
involved selective hand picking of individual ripe fruit.
There are two methods of harvesting the date fruits,
traditional method and mechanical method. In traditional
method, a labor climbs the tree with a safety belt around
him and the palm. When he reaches the fruit bunches,
begin to pick the ripe fruits, and then picked fruit are
placed into carried basket which are then lowered to the
ground with a rope [13]. Fig. (3) illustrates traditional
method for date harvesting. Furthermore; in this method
labor has to stay at the top of the tree, for a long time to
pick ripe fruits. This practice, due to its difficulty is a
dangerous job, and working for a long time in that height
is very difficult, and labors risk serious accidents. So, it is
done by skilled labor that has long time experience [13].
However, analysis of manual date palm climbing
operation is achieved as listed in [14]. In a majority of the
date growing regions, manual harvesting is the
predominant method but labor shortages and human
hazards during harvest operations motivated a need for
improved mechanical harvesting methods and equipment
[13].
Figure 3. Traditional method of date harvesting
106
In mechanized harvesting and related fruit separation
several systems for elevating the workers to the fruit,
removing the fruit from the bunch, and handling the
harvested fruit between the field and packing house were
investigated. Usual date harvesting machines are vehicle
equipped with a long arm, at the end of which a man
could stand in a basket and harvest the fruits [13]. In [ 15,
16, 17, 18 and 19], a date palm machine (Fig. 4)
designed and tested in the field. It consists of an electro-
hydraulic controlled basket mounted on a four-wheel-
drive chassis. This is driven by a diesel engine used to
enable the worker to be elevated into the tree or to power
the wheels. The output of harvested dates in kg/man hour
is greater with the machine than with traditional hand
harvesting. In [20], a tractor-mounted date palm tree
service machine was developed and tested. A
hydraulically driven winch is available to lower the
harvested dates in a clean basket to the ground. Compared
to the traditional way of serving palm trees, where a
worker climbs the tree using a piece of rope, the system
provides a safer and more comfortable working
environment. Although many date farms still use ladders,
a U-Shaped basket on a forklift to reach the dates could be
used [21].
III. THE MOBILE ROBOTIC UNIT FOR DATE HARVISTING
Saudi Arabia is at the forefront of the world
production of dates, producing about one million tons of
dates annually [22]. With an increasing number of palm
trees planted and the limited availability of skilled labor
and increased the cost of harvest dates, this makes the
interest in raising the efficiency of operations and reap
the harvest of dates in Saudi Arabia is important work.
So, develop a Mobile Robotic Unit for Date Harvesting
(MRUDH) is our research interest in the College of
Agriculture and Food Sciences, Department of
Agricultural Engineering, King Saud University. This
unit takes different stages to be visual. The first stage in
developing the MRUDH is to study the characteristics of
fruit bunches based on their position on palm tree. These
characteristics include diameter of fruit bunch (D), the
distance of fruit bunch from the trunk (L), the radius of
a pregnant fruit bunch (R), and the horizontal distance
between the two fruit bunches (S) as shown in Fig. 5.
Measurements in accordance with a changing age and
dates type in the area of Riyadh were achieved after
ripping the dates on palm tree. The dates types include
different varieties. The age palm tree ranging between 8
to 15 years.
Figure 4. Date harvesting could be done by mechanical ladder
[15]
 19th International Workshop on Robotics in Alpe-Adria-Danube Region – RAAD 2010 •June 23–25, 2010, Budapest, Hungary

TABLE 1.
SPECIFICATIONS OF THE ROBOTIC ARM
Drive DC motors with position encoders
Repeat accuracy ±0.1 mm
Degree of freedom 5 to 6
Working radius Up to 60 cm
Mechanical design High-strength aluminum, anodized
Net Weight 4.8 kg (without control box and gripper)
Max power 96 W(24 V/4A)
Figure. 5. Characteristics of fruit bunch based on its position on palm Speed 90º/sec
tree Working space 517 mm (without gripper)
Payload from flange 400 g
Force 4 N (in all directions)
The statistical analysis, which show a moral Point speed < 1 m / sec
difference between the varieties of palm studied with an Standard interfaces Digital I/0, Ethernet, Modbus TCP/IP,
overall average of diameter of fruit bunch (D), the (additional I/0 and PLC-connection), USB, LAN, Soft Stop, UPS,
distance of fruit bunch from the trunk (L), the radius of C++ interface, support for Python
a pregnant fruit bunch (R), and the horizontal distance
TABLE 2.
between the two fruit bunches (S) is 375 mm, and 482 SOME SPECIFICATIONS OF THE CATERPILLAR TELEHANDLERS
mm and 699 mm and 346 mm, respectively. The TH62
horizontal distance between the two fruit bunches (S) Engine Model Cat 3054E
increased by increasing tree age with linear relationship Gross Power 74.5 kW
Operating Specifications
with R2 of 0.924. The robotic arm suitable to deal with Rated Load Capacity 3600 kg
this characteristics has length of minimal 600 mm, and Maximum Lift Height 7200 mm
degree of freedom not less 4. Load at Max Reach 1250 kg
The second stage in developing the MRUDH is Load at Max Height 2000 kg
selecting the robot arm that meet the requirements of Maximum Forward Reach 3800 mm
Dimensions
characteristics of date bunch. By browsing through
Height 2270 mm
manufactures of robotics, a robotic arm of Neuronics Width 2350 mm
company [23] was found to be meet the required Ground Clearance 425 mm
specifications (Fig. 6) in primary works. The Transmission Speeds
specifications of that robotic arm are shown in Table 1. Forward - 1 7 km/h
The third stage in developing the MRUDH is
selecting the lifter to hold the robotic arm and reach to the
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUTION
right position at the palm tree. It is Caterpillar
Telehandlers TH62. Some specifications of the used
Caterpillar Telehandlers are shown in Table 2. With the The MRUDH was tested for measuring the movement
wide range of lift capacities and lift heights, Cat of the arm to select and pick up the right one. At each
Telehandlers give us the strength and power to take the position, the system was calibrated to a zero level, then
robotic arm and loads up and out. Also, it has two forks. the unit measure the movement of the arm around dates
The fourth stage in developing the MRUDH is on bunch. The system shows promising efficiency as
assembled the robotic arm on the Caterpillar shown in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8.
Telehandlers forks. Special platform was designed with
width of 1200 mm and depth of 300 mm to carry the
robotic arm and control box. This platform was
assembled and sliding on the two forks. The distance
between the robotic arm and the wall of the forks was 170
mm.

Figure 7. The arm reached the date

Figure 6. The robotic arm from Neuronics company

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A. A. Aljanobi et al. • A Setup of Mobile Robotic Unit for Fruit Harvesting
Figure 8. The arm hold one date
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors are grateful to King Abdulaziz City for
Science and Technology (KACST) for funding the
project MT-1-3.
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