Abstract
Robotic packaging generally involves picking target objects from a pile consisting of many other similar or random objects. For a pile composed of herbs, the weight picked up can be controlled by varying the opening aperture width of a parallel gripper. However, the individual strands of herbs get entangled with each other, causing more to be picked up than desired. Here, it is shown that using a spread-and-pick approach the degree of entanglement in a herb pile can be reduced. Compared to the traditional approach of picking from an entanglement-free point in the pile, the proposed approach reduces the variance in picked weight for homogeneous piles of plastic and real herbs by 36.35% and 23.64%, respectively. These results demonstrate that using the proposed spread-and-pick approach, the stochasticity of a herb environment can be counterbalanced effectively.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | 2020 UK Robotics and Autonomous Systems Conference (UKRAS) |
Subtitle of host publication | Robots into the Real World |
Publisher | The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Apr 2020 |
Keywords
- Robotics in Agriculture and Forestry
- Agricultural Automation
- Computer Vision for Automation