Advanced Stem Mechanism for Flower Robot (original) (raw)

A study on the moving mechanism for flower robot

As a service robot, we proposed a flower robot which has several functions, such as moving mechanism, sensing ability, and home appliance functions. Among the various functions, the moving function of the flower robot is very important function. The moving flower robot can be divided as a flower, a stem and leaves. We tried to mimic the blooming of flower, the swaying of the stem and the stirring of the leaves in the wind. For the actuation of the flower robot, we used micromotors and tendon mechanisms. From the motions of the flower, the stem and the leaves, the desired target positions are decided. In addition, based on inverse kinematics and trajectory generations, the overall control system for the moving flower robot is constructed. Through the various experiments, the performances of each part of the flower robot are verified and the characteristics are discussed.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE FLOWER ROBOT BY USING TENDON MECHNAISM

This paper deals with a study and development of the flower robot among service robots, which has the functions of interior and robotic movements. The proposed flower robot consists of flower, stem and leaves, which are actuated by the tendon mechanism. The flower, stem and leaves structures are integrated and controlled as one flower robot. For the control, we used dSPACE system and Simulink of MATLAB. From the development of the flower robot, we mimic the blooming of the flower, the swaying of the stem, and the stirring of the leaves, respectively, and can fabricate the sensor integrated robotic flower robot.

Group Dancing Mobile Flower Robots with Moving Mechanism, Mobility and Localization Functions

Recently, the diverse robots with flower shape have been developed for use as interior, HRI, performance, and home appliance. In this research, we proposed new type mobile flower robots which have flower-type design, mobility, and localization. Especially, the flower shape robot was designed to mimic the swaying of the branches and the blooming of the flowers. The branches and the flowers were actuated by tendon mechanism. And, the flower robots have the mobile platform which consists of three-wheels with the steering ability, respectively. The mobile platforms of the flower robot can locomote to the desired direction and track to the desired path. The localization of multi mobile flower robot was based on the smart floor using passive RFID tags and the extended Kalman filter to estimate of location(x, y) under nondetection of RFID tags. RFID tags which are equilateral triangulation grid pattern are distributed under the surface of the smart floor and each of RFID tags is able to pr...

A Novel Design of Flower Tying Machine

2020

A prototype model of automated flower string machine is proposed to knot the flowers. In India’s rich culture flower garlands play a vital role. They are used for decorations and adorations of Gods, men and women. Garlanding of flower is a monotonous and time- consuming job. The flower string machine is conceptualized based on the working principle of sewing machine and added multiple kinematic mechanisms to drive the flower feeding and stringing. The flowers will be placed on the conveyor belt and based on process control technique; an innovative knotting mechanism will be used to string the flowers. It is also a customized machine for armless and loss of fingers community. Flower tying machine ensures perfect garlanding in an affordable cost. By this technique, the manual work can be reduced and flower vendors can utilize their time effectively.

Characterization of the Growing From the Tip as Robot Locomotion Strategy

Frontiers in Robotics and AI

Growing robots are a new class of robots able to move in the environment exploiting a growing from the tip process (movement by growing). Thanks to this property, these robots are able to navigate 3D environments while negotiating confined spaces and large voids by adapting their body. During the exploration of the environment, the tip of the robot is able to move in any direction and can be kinematically considered as a non-holonomic mobile system. In this paper, we show the kinematics of robot growing at its tip level. We also present the affordable workspace analyzed by an evaluation of feasible trajectories toward target poses. The geometrical key parameters imposing constraints on growing robots' workspace are discussed, in view of facing different possible application scenarios. The proposed kinematics was applied to a plant-inspired growing robot moving in a 3D environment in simulation, obtaining ∼2 cm error after 1 m of displacement. With appropriate parametrization, the proposed kinematic model is able to describe the motion from the tip in robots able to grow.

Optimal Flower Pollination Based Nonlinear PID Controller for Pantograph Robot Mechanism

International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research

Pantograph Robot Mechanism is considered a type of parallel manipulator which has been developed largely for industrial applications that need high accuracy and speed. Whereas, it needs a high-performance controller to track preselected trajectory planning. It is also able to carry higher weights than the open-chain mechanism with suitable accuracy and stability; this is because it consists of four active links and one passive link, instead of two links as in the open chain. This study presents a mathematical model for a closed chain pantograph mechanism, where the boundary conditions are taken into account. A complete MATLAB Simulink has been developed to simulate the dynamics of the pantograph robot mechanism. To validate the proposed mathematical model of the pantograph, the corresponding Simscape model had been developed. Also, two different tracking controllers were designed. The first control is the PID controller which had optimized by Flower Pollination (FP) optimization. The second control is an enhanced Nonlinear PID (NLPID) controller where its parameters were obtained by Flower Pollination (FP) optimization based on the effective objective function. A rectangular trajectory was selected to be a position reference of the end effector of the pantograph robot. This task was done using the proposed controllers to investigate the performance. The results show that the NLPID controller-based FP has a better performance compared to the PID controller. The end effector has a less rise time and settling time with high accuracy in the case of the NLPID controller.

A robot to shape your natural plant

Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, 2018

Bio-hybrid systems-close couplings of natural organisms with technology-are high potential and still underexplored. In existing work, robots have mostly influenced group behaviors of animals. We explore the possibilities of mixing robots with natural plants, merging useful attributes. Significant synergies arise by combining the plants' ability to efficiently produce shaped material and the robots' ability to extend sensing and decision-making behaviors. However, programming robots to control plant motion and shape requires good knowledge of complex plant behaviors. Therefore, we use machine learning to create a holistic plant model and evolve robot controllers. As a benchmark task we choose obstacle avoidance. We use computer vision to construct a model of plant stem stiffening and motion dynamics by training an LSTM network. The LSTM network acts as a forward model predicting change in the plant, driving the evolution of neural network robot controllers. The evolved controllers augment the plants' natural light-finding and tissue-stiffening behaviors to avoid obstacles and grow desired shapes. We successfully verify the robot controllers and bio-hybrid behavior in reality, with a physical setup and actual plants.

Flower Harvesting Robot Using Computer Vision

International Journal of Engineering Applied Sciences and Technology

over the past decades, horticulture industry can be considered as one of the main contributors of the export sector in developing countries like Ethiopia. The horticulture industry deals with plants, mainly for food, beauty and decoration (flowers). This paper aims at providing a system that can improve outdated ways of harvesting methods. Those are mainly manual and laborious tasks which also took a lot of time. In this paper, a harvesting robot is designed and implemented using raspberry pi microcomputer to build a flower harvesting system that can identify, sort and arrange the flowers being harvested without human interaction. Here, a computer vision technology is applied to identify the types and states of the flowers. A convolution neural network image classifier is used along with deep learning networks. The harvesting activity of the machine is assisted by a 3 DOF robotic arm and additional cutting mechanism attached with cutter blade.

Robotic solutions for pot-plant nurseries

Billion of pots are produced every year in Europe. In many Countries, in particular in Mediterranean area, pot plant nurseries involve a lot of manpower and the degree of mechanization is still low, affecting the competiveness of farms. Moreover, most operations performed on potted-plant are extremely repetitive (e.g. pots handling, trimming, granular fertilization) and some tasks are critical for operator's safety (e.g. spray applications). A number of automatic machines and implements are available on the market, but in most cases the installation of fixed and expansive structures is required. The introduction of small multipurpose robotic platforms, able to navigate autonomously along pot rows, would reduce the manpower requirement improving, at the same time, work safety. The design and the kinematic study of an autonomous robotic platform conceived to operate in pot plant nurseries is presented in this paper. The robot is based on a four drive-and-steering wheels vehicle de...

Innovative Robot For Chamomile Flower Harvesting As A New Approach Based On ‎Visual Selection

Agricultural Engineering International: CIGR Journal, 2024

One of the most significant crops, the production of which the Egyptian government tends to increase, is chamomile flowers. In contrast, the expansion of this crop's agriculture is being driven by the high cost of manual harvesting. The goal of this study was to design and test a robot that could harvest chamomile flowers while preserving the plant's health, cutting costs, and maintaining flower quality. A prototype of chamomile flower harvesting robot was designed, manufactured and tested. The robot consists of three main systems: the mobile platform, the delta mechanism, and the visual selection system which detects the flowers ready for harvesting. The flower quality and technical evaluation criteria were the two primary evaluation factors. An overall evaluation criterion for manual harvesting and harvesting robots was also calculated in order to compare the two harvesting systems. The chamomile robot could achieve a cycle time of 3s and harvest time 21s/plant. During the harvest season, the robot produced 1200 flowers/hour with an average harvest success 75% - 89%. Three aspects of the robot's visual system were examined: detection ability, accuracy, and detection precision ratio. The outcomes demonstrated that the robot could achieve an accuracy of 72.4% and a detection precision ratio of 75%. For the flower quality criterion, the majority of the flower samples gathered by the robot fell into the high-quality and medium-quality flower categories. According to the overall endpoint results, the robot outperformed manual harvesting (23.53%) in terms of percentage (80%).