A “global–local” visual servo system for picking manipulators

Abstract

During the process of automated crop picking, the two hand–eye coordination operation systems, namely “eye to hand” and “eye in hand” have their respective advantages and disadvantages. It is challenging to simultaneously consider both the operational accuracy and the speed of a manipulator. In response to this problem, this study constructs a “global–local” visual servo picking system based on a prototype of a picking robot to provide a global field of vision (through binocular vision) and carry out the picking operation using the monocular visual servo. Using tomato picking as an example, experiments were conducted to obtain the accuracies of judgment and range of fruit maturity, and the scenario of fruit-bearing was simulated over an area where the operation was ongoing to examine the rate of success of the system in terms of continuous fruit picking. The results show that the global–local visual servo picking system had an average accuracy of correctly judging fruit maturity of 92.8%, average error of fruit distance measurement in the range 0.485 cm, average time for continuous fruit picking of 20.06 s, and average success rate of picking of 92.45%.