Review
Agriculture, Multidisciplinary
Hongyu Zhou, Xing Wang, Wesley Au, Hanwen Kang, Chao Chen
Summary: This paper reviews the state-of-the-art of intelligent fruit harvesting robots and analyzes the potential reasons for their inadequate performance. Furthermore, it proposes future research directions considering environmental factors and user requirements.
PRECISION AGRICULTURE
(2022)
Review
Plant Sciences
Yinglin Ji, Aide Wang
Summary: Apple is one of the largest fruits in terms of cultivated area and yield globally. The fruit is marketed after storage, and the complex interplay of phytohormones plays an important role in ripening process.
Article
Agriculture, Multidisciplinary
Xing Wang, Hanwen Kang, Hongyu Zhou, Wesley Au, Chao Chen
Summary: Field robotic harvesting is a promising technique in agricultural industry. This study proposes a geometry-aware network, A3N, and a global-to-local scanning strategy to enable robots to accurately recognize and retrieve fruits in complex field environments.
COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS IN AGRICULTURE
(2022)
Article
Agronomy
Rafael Grasso, M. Teresa Pena-Fleitas, Romina de Souza, Alejandra Rodriguez, Rodney B. Thompson, Marisa Gallardo, Francisco M. Padilla
Summary: This study evaluated the effects of different nitrogen (N) applications on muskmelon and sweet pepper crops in Almeria, Spain. The results showed that reducing N application in muskmelon did not affect yield or fruit quality, but further studies are needed for sweet pepper.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Monika Vidak, Boris Lazarevic, Marko Petek, Jerko Gunjaca, Zlatko Satovic, Ivica Budor, Klaudija Carovic-Stanko
Summary: The study investigated the effect of commercial calcite nanoparticles on sweet pepper fruits and found that it can reduce yield and increase fruit firmness, with different effects observed depending on the cultivar.
Article
Robotics
Kaixiang Zhang, Kyle Lammers, Pengyu Chu, Zhaojian Li, Renfu Lu
Summary: The decrease in labor availability and increase in cost are threatening the long-term profitability and sustainability of the apple industry. This paper presents the design and evaluation of a new apple harvesting robot, which consists of perception, manipulator, end-effector, and dropping/catching components. Software algorithms enable efficient and automated harvesting by coordinating these hardware components. Field tests in different orchards showed successful harvesting rates of 82.4% and 65.2% with an average cycle time of 6 seconds per fruit.
JOURNAL OF FIELD ROBOTICS
(2023)
Article
Agronomy
Renata Nurzynska-Wierdak, Halina Buczkowska, Andrzej Salata
Summary: The study found that mycorrhizal inoculation and irrigation regime have significant effects on the morphology and chemical composition of pepper fruits. Mycorrhizal inoculation increases fruit weight, length, and width, but decreases the content of certain chemical components. Irrigation helps enhance the biological value of fruits and increases antioxidant activity.
Article
Horticulture
Sijia Chen, Leo F. M. Marcelis, Ep Heuvelink
Summary: Fruit set is a critical process in plant development, especially for pepper crops which typically have low fruit set. The role of light spectrum in fruit set has not been well studied. This study investigated the effects of additional far-red light on fruit set of sweet pepper using narrow-band LED lighting.
SCIENTIA HORTICULTURAE
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Jesus Dassaef Lopez-Barrios, Jesus Arturo Escobedo Cabello, Alfonso Gomez-Espinosa, Luis-Enrique Montoya-Cavero
Summary: In this paper, a Mask R-CNN is used to improve the performance of machine vision in detecting peduncles and fruits of green sweet peppers in greenhouses. The ResNet-101 + FPN network is adopted for feature extraction and object representation enhancement. The proposed implementation manages to segment the peduncle and fruit of the green sweet pepper in real-time.
APPLIED SCIENCES-BASEL
(2023)
Article
Robotics
Marsela Polic, Jelena Tabak, Matko Orsag
Summary: This paper introduces a robotic system for picking peppers in a structured robotic greenhouse, utilizing an RGB-D camera and CNN algorithm to detect the correct grasping pose, as well as point cloud data and geometric model fitting to detect the pepper's position. The experimental results show that the system has high precision and robustness, with a high success rate in the harvesting process.
INTELLIGENT SERVICE ROBOTICS
(2022)
Article
Agronomy
Hongyu Zhou, Hanwen Kang, Xing Wang, Wesley Au, Michael Yu Wang, Chao Chen
Summary: This study proposed a tactile-enabled robotic grasping method that combines deep learning, tactile sensing, and soft robots. By integrating fin-ray fingers with embedded tactile sensing arrays and customized perception algorithms, the robot gains the ability to sense and handle branch interference during the harvesting process and reduce mechanical fruit damage.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Rick van Essen, Ben Harel, Gert Kootstra, Yael Edan
Summary: This paper presents a rule-based methodology for dynamically selecting the viewpoint for maturity classification of sweet peppers. The method takes into account potential misclassification and operational costs, and makes an online decision to capture the best viewpoint. The results show that dynamic viewpoint selection improves classification accuracy and reduces economic costs for sweet peppers.
APPLIED SCIENCES-BASEL
(2022)
Article
Agronomy
Rob Moerkens, Sten Boonen, Felix L. Wackers, Apostolos Pekas
Summary: This study demonstrates that Eupeodes corollae and Sphaerophoria rueppellii can effectively reduce foxglove aphid infestations in sweet pepper, leading to increased fruit yield and seed set. Under limited prey conditions, hoverfly larvae were not able to complete development, with larvae of Sphaerophoria rueppellii showing significantly longer survival than Eupeodes corollae.
PEST MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Agronomy
Jeronimo Salinas, Francisco M. Padilla, Rodney B. Thompson, M. Teresa Pena-Fleitas, Maria Lopez-Martin, Marisa Gallardo
Summary: Increasing salinization of groundwater used for irrigation is a current problem for vegetable production in greenhouses in the Mediterranean Basin. This study evaluated the effect of salinity on sweet pepper and determined threshold values for crop yield and plant water relations. Results showed significant reductions in yield and fruit quality with increasing salinity. The Maas and Hoffman model was used to determine threshold values for various parameters. An ECsst value of 5.0 dS m-1 is suggested for sweet pepper grown in Mediterranean greenhouses.
AGRICULTURAL WATER MANAGEMENT
(2023)
Review
Automation & Control Systems
Yuxuan Liu, Jixin Hou, Changying Li, Xianqiao Wang
Summary: This review article provides a comprehensive overview of the design and control aspects of intelligent soft robotic grippers specifically tailored for agricultural product handling. It discusses the recent progress in gripper design and the role of advanced control approaches in enabling intelligent functions. The challenges and opportunities pertaining to the implementation of soft grippers in the agricultural industry are thoroughly discussed.
ADVANCED INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS
(2023)
