Design and experiment of pneumatic non-destructive picking mechanism for coated kiwi fruit

In order to solve the problem that the skin of kiwifruit is easily scratched during picking, a new type of enveloping airbag gripper based on pneumatic control of airbag expansion and contraction to achieve fruit storage and encapsulation was designed. By increasing the area of contact between the fruit and the gripper, reducing the compression on the fruit, the harvesting success rate was improved without damage to the fruit. The mechanical structure of the airbag gripper was designed by capturing and shearing the fruit from the bottom upwards. Through finite element simulation to analyze the force situation between the airbag and the fruit during picking, it was proved that the force point of the designed gripper was mainly on the upper and lower surfaces of the airbag gripper with a high fit. After the field picking test, the picking success rate and damage rate of the airbag gripper under different air pressure were tested. The best picking effect was achieved when the air pressure of the gripper was 40 kPa, with a success rate of 95%, and the damage rate curve was most similar to hand picking.