Moeko Tominaga

Papers

Total Citations

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About

Moeko Tominaga is a robotics researcher focused on smart agriculture, specifically the automation of tomato harvesting—a critical challenge given Japan’s aging farming workforce and the physically demanding conditions of greenhouse cultivation. Her work centers on developing robotic systems that can reliably detect, approach, and harvest ripe tomatoes in high-temperature, high-humidity environments. Tominaga’s most cited paper, “Report on the 8th Tomato-Harvesting Competition toward Smart Agriculture” (2023, 5 citations), provides a comprehensive analysis of the competition’s technical benchmarks and highlights persistent research gaps in manipulator design and fruit recognition. Her follow-up study, “Development of Harvesting Robot for Tomato Robot Competition 2022 and Its Evaluation” (2023, 2 citations), details the iterative design and field testing of a competition-specific robot, offering practical insights into the trade-offs between speed, accuracy, and mechanical robustness. By actively participating in the annual Tomato Robot Competition, Tominaga contributes to a collaborative, competition-driven research ecosystem that accelerates progress in agricultural robotics. Her work is especially valuable for students and engineers seeking to understand the real-world constraints of deploying robots in non-industrial settings, from sensor reliability under variable lighting to end-effector gentleness.