Abstract
This study was carried out to de develop a control strategy of a fruit harvesting redundant robot. The method of generating a safe trajectory, which avoids collisions with obstracles such as branches or immature fruits, in the 3D(3-dimension) space using artificial potential field technique and virtual plane concept was proposed. Also, the method of setting reference velocity vectors to follow the trajectory and to avoid obstacles in the 3D space was proposed. Developed methods were verified with computer simulations and with actual robot tests. Fro the actual robot tests, a machine vision system was used for detecting fruits and obstacles, Results showed that developed control method could reduce the occurrences of the robot manipulator located in the possible collision distance. with 10 virtual obstacles generated randomly in the 3 D space, maximum rates of the occurrences of the robot manipulator located in the possible collision distance, 0.03 m, from the obstacles were 8 % with 5 degree of freedom (DOF), 8 % with 6-DOF, and 4% with 7-DOF, respectively.
