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arXiv · 2309.17170

Robotic Grasping of Harvested Tomato Trusses Using Vision and Online Learning

Luuk van den Bent·Tomás Coleman·Robert Babuška
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Abstract

Currently, truss tomato weighing and packaging require significant manual work. The main obstacle to automation lies in the difficulty of developing a reliable robotic grasping system for already harvested trusses. We propose a method to grasp trusses that are stacked in a crate with considerable clutter, which is how they are commonly stored and transported after harvest. The method consists of a deep learning-based vision system to first identify the individual trusses in the crate and then determine a suitable grasping location on the stem. To this end, we have introduced a grasp pose ranking algorithm with online learning capabilities. After selecting the most promising grasp pose, the robot executes a pinch grasp without needing touch sensors or geometric models. Lab experiments with a robotic manipulator equipped with an eye-in-hand RGB-D camera showed a 100% clearance rate when tasked to pick all trusses from a pile. 93% of the trusses were successfully grasped on the first try, while the remaining 7% required more attempts.

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Luuk van den Bent, Tomás Coleman, Robert Babuška. 2025-02-12. Robotic Grasping of Harvested Tomato Trusses Using Vision and Online Learning. https://doi.org/10.1109/icra57147.2024.10610089

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