Embodiments of the invention comprise a system and method that enable
robotic harvesting of agricultural crops. One approach for automating the
harvesting of fresh fruits and vegetables is to use a robot comprising a
machine-vision system containing rugged solid-state digital cameras to
identify and locate the fruit on each tree, coupled with a picking system
to perform the picking. In one embodiment of the invention a robot moves
through a field first to "map" the field to determine plant locations,
the number and size of fruit on the plants and the approximate positions
of the fruit on each plant. A robot employed in this embodiment may
comprise a GPS sensor to simplify the mapping process. At least one
camera on at least one arm of a robot may be mounted in appropriately
shaped protective enclosure so that a camera can be physically moved into
the canopy of the plant if necessary to map fruit locations from inside
the canopy. Once the map of the fruit is complete for a field, the robot
can plan and implement an efficient picking plan for itself or another
robot. In one embodiment of the invention, a scout robot or harvest robot
determines a picking plan in advance of picking a tree. This may be done
if the map is finished hours, days or weeks before a robot is scheduled
to harvest, or if the picking plan algorithm selected requires
significant computational time and cannot be implemented in "real time"
by the harvesting robot as it is picking the field. If the picking
algorithm selected is less computationally intense, the harvester may
calculate the plan as it is harvesting. The system harvests according to
the selected picking plan. The picking plan may be generated in the scout
robot, harvest robot or on a server. Each of the elements in the system
may be configured to communicate with each other using wireless
communications technologies.
