Development of a Flexible Multi-Degrees-of-Freedom Robot for Plant Pollination

Abstract

Pollination is an important factor in crop growth, but agricultural fields are currently suffering from the lack of natural pollinators due to a variety of factors. Recently, artificial pollination has been integrated to help solve that severe problem. Robotic pollinators not only can aid farmers by providing more cost-effective and stable methods for pollinating plants but also benefit crop production in environments not suitable for natural pollinators such as greenhouses. Robotic pollination requires precision and autonomy but few systems have addressed both aspects in practice. In this paper, a flexible multi-degrees-of-freedom robot is presented that is capable of precisely pollinating flowers. The robot imitates the effect of wind blowing as a pollination technique. Based on the cultivation restriction, the robot adapts a collision-free motion design to move the end-effector to the blowing position without hitting the crop and the construction of the greenhouses. The proposed robot can navigate and pollinate flowers at any oriented position when tested with artificial flowers in a simulated pollination experiment.