Project Clarifications (Updated 23/09)

• You can re-load your bundling mechanism (e.g. elastic band etc.) when it is empty
• If your bundling system gets stuck, you can’t unload, you can manaully remove, but you get none of the deposit points for this
• You move your system manually between asparagus – you must stop at each one
• The mount will be on the underside of the rails (note change)
• You can use one input to start the harvest/detection, and a second to trigger the release.
• If you decide not to harvest the asparargus it will not be moved, you need to make sure your system can be moved without accidentally harvesting it!

Scenario: Developing robots to harvest asparagus is crucial for addressing labour shortages in agriculture, particularly for crops like asparagus that require delicate handling during selection and field sorting. Asparagus spears must be selected based on precise length and handled carefully to avoid damaging the tender tips, making automation vital to ensure consistent quality and reduce post-harvest waste. Robotic harvesting also increases efficiency, allowing farmers to meet growing demand while reducing labour costs and ensuring a more sustainable and scalable approach to crop production.

Goal: In five minutes, you must harvest as many sufficiently long asparagus spears as possible without damaging them, whilst leaving short spears to continue growing in the soil, sort them by colour (green and white), and bundle the sorted groups using elastic bands. Diseased spears should also be left untouched to avoid contaminating the system

Specifications

• The gripper should use no more than 3 actuators
• The gripper should have a size which can fit in to a volume of 25 x 20 x 20 cm when in a compressed state. It can go outside this space during operation
• The gripper must be able to be mounted on a linear rail, with the provided mounting system (see below)
• To gripper can be manually moved along the linear rail to each asparagus, after which the system must run autonomously to do detection and harvesting. The robot can then manually moved to the deposit area.
• The identification of the object (color type, and lenght) should be printed to a laptop screen (via. serial monitor, or other) or by indicators on your system (e.g. LEDs or similar)
• There is a maximum of 5 minutes to attempt as many asparaug as possible. If there is any issue beyond your control, the time will be reset, or restarted.
• Teams have one minute to assemble on to the mount on the linear rail.

Asparagus

The asparagus are of varying color (reflecting species), length:

• Color: Black (healthy) any other color (diseased or wrong species)