FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to agricultural machinery, and particularly to fruit-harvesting robots.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Agricultural operations such as fruit harvesting traditionally involve intensive manual labor. Nevertheless, various solutions for automating these operations have been proposed. For example, Sarig provides a review of several fruit-picking robotics solutions, in “Robotics of Fruit Harvesting: A State-of-the-art Review,” Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research, volume 54, 1993. U.S. Pat. No. 3,646,741 describes a crop harvesting apparatus that is particularly suited for picking of tree-borne crops such as fruit and nuts.

Peterson et al. describe a robotic bulk apple harvester, in “A Systems Approach to Robotic Bulk Harvesting of Apples,” Transactions of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers, volume 42, issue 4, 1999. PCT International Publication WO 2006/063314 describes an agricultural robot system for harvesting, pruning, culling, weeding, measuring and managing of agricultural crops.

Beaten et al. describe an autonomous fruit picking machine, in “Autonomous Fruit Picking Machine: A Robotic Apple Harvester,” 6thInternational Conference on Field and Service Robotics—FSR 2007, Chamonix, France, 2007. Scarfe et al. describe a kiwifruit-picking robot, in “Development of an Autonomous Kiwifruit Picking Robot,” Proceedings of the 4thInternational Conference on Autonomous Robots and Agents, February, 2009.

U.S. Pat. No. 7,765,780 describes a robot that maps a field to determine plant locations, number and size of fruit on plants and approximate positions of fruit on each plant, and can then plan and implement an efficient picking plan for itself or another robot. De-An et al. describe a robotic device consisting of a manipulator, end-effector and image-based vision servo control system for harvesting apples, in “Design and Control of an Apple Harvesting Robot,” Biosystems Engineering, volume 110, 2011.

A mass-removal approach for harvesting is proposed by Energid Technologies (Cambridge, Mass.) in “Robotic Mass Removal of Citrus Fruit,” April, 2012.

U.S. Pat. No. 9,475,189 describes a harvesting system that includes multiple robots, one or more sensors and one or more computers. The robots are mounted on a common frame facing an area to be harvested, and are each configured to harvest crop items by reaching and gripping the crop items from a fixed angle of approach. The sensors are configured to acquire images of the area. The computers are configured to identify the crop items in the images, and to direct the robots to harvest the identified crop items.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

An embodiment of the present invention that is described herein provides a harvesting system including a vertical frame, a plurality of linear robots, a plurality of cameras and a processor. The vertical frame is configured to be positioned opposite a sector to be harvested. The robots are arranged in pairs stacked vertically in the frame, each pair including first and second robots that are configured to move together along a vertical axis, to move independently of one another along a horizontal axis, and have respective first and second robot arms that are configured to approach the sector and harvest fruit. The plurality of cameras is configured to acquire images of the sector. The processor is configured to identify the fruit in the images and control the robots to harvest the fruit.

Typically, each of the robots has four degrees-of-freedom. In some embodiments, the processor is configured to identify in the images a clustered pair of fruit, and to direct a pair of the robots to adjoin one another and to synchronously harvest both fruit of the clustered pair. In an example embodiment, the processor is configured to direct the pair of the robots to grip both fruit of the clustered pair, and, only after both fruit are gripped, to pick the fruit of the clustered pair.

In a disclosed embodiment, the processor is configured to construct, based on the images, a model of the sector indicating 3-D coordinates of the fruit, orientations of the fruit and status of the fruit, and to derive from the model a work schedule for the plurality of the robots, the work schedule specifying (i) moving of the pairs of robots among vertical positions, and (ii) in each vertical position of a pair of robots, moving each of the robots in the pair horizontally and harvesting the fruit.

In some embodiments, each of the robot arms includes a pneumatic drive mechanism and an electrical-motor drive mechanism, both configured to extend and retract the robot arm. In an embodiment, the processor is configured to control the robot arm to approach the sector by jointly driving the pneumatic drive mechanism and the electrical-motor drive mechanism.

There is additionally provided, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, a harvesting method including positioning, opposite a sector to be harvested, a vertical frame having a plurality of linear robots arranged in pairs and stacked vertically in the frame, each pair including first and second robots that are configured to move together along a vertical axis, to move independently of one another along a horizontal axis, and have respective first and second robot arms that are configured to approach the sector and harvest fruit. Images of the sector are acquiring using a plurality of cameras. Using a processor, the fruit are identified in the images and the robots are controlled to harvest the fruit.

The present invention will be more fully understood from the following detailed description of the embodiments thereof, taken together with the drawings in which:

