A Suspended Pollination Robot With a Flexible Multi-Degrees-of-Freedom Manipulator for Self-Pollinated Plants

Pollination is an essential component of plant production, but today, agricultural fields suffer from a shortage of natural pollinators due to a variety of factors. To solve this serious problem, artificial pollination has been introduced. Robotic pollinators not only help farmers with a more cost-effective and stable pollination method but also help in crop production in environments that are not suited for natural pollinators, such as greenhouses. In this paper, we propose a suspended pollination robot that moves along the rail laid on the roof of greenhouses. This robot has a flexible multi-degrees-of-freedom manipulator with two actuators: a retractable linear actuator controls the end effector with a blower to approach the flower, and a tendon-driven continuum actuator changes the orientation of the end effector. After a flower is designated by a perspective camera and close-up camera, the end effector blows the wind to shake the flower. Field tests are conducted by manual control to assess the fruit set rate of tomatoes, one of the well-known self-pollinated plants. This result becomes a benchmark for robotic pollination when manual tasks will be replaced by AI in the future.