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Review
. 2023 Sep 15;12(18):3451.
doi: 10.3390/foods12183451.

Research Progress on Low Damage Grasping of Fruit, Vegetable and Meat Raw Materials

Zeyu Xu  1   2   3 , Wenbo Shi  1   2   3 , Dianbo Zhao  1   2   3 , Ke Li  1   2   3 , Junguang Li  1   2   3 , Junyi Dong  1   2   3 , Yu Han  1   2   3 , Jiansheng Zhao  4 , Yanhong Bai  1   2   3
Affiliations
Review

Research Progress on Low Damage Grasping of Fruit, Vegetable and Meat Raw Materials

Zeyu Xu et al. Foods. .

Abstract

The sorting and processing of food raw materials is an important step in the food production process, and the quality of the sorting operation can directly or indirectly affect the quality of the product. In order to improve production efficiency and reduce damage to food raw materials, some food production enterprises currently use robots for sorting operations of food raw materials. In the process of robot grasping, some food raw materials such as fruits, vegetables and meat have a soft appearance, complex and changeable shape, and are easily damaged by the robot gripper. Therefore, higher requirements have been put forward for robot grippers, and the research and development of robot grippers that can reduce damage to food raw materials and ensure stable grasping has been a major focus. In addition, in order to grasp food raw materials with various shapes and sizes with low damage, a variety of sensors and control strategies are required. Based on this, this paper summarizes the low damage grasp principle and characteristics of electric grippers, pneumatic grippers, vacuum grippers and magnetic grippers used in automated sorting production lines of fruit, vegetable and meat products, as well as gripper design methods to reduce grasp damage. Then, a grasping control strategy based on visual sensors and tactile sensors was introduced. Finally, the challenges and potential future trends faced by food robot grippers were summarized.

Keywords: control strategies; food raw materials; low damage grasping; robot gripper.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. Author Jiansheng Zhao was employed by the company Henan Shuanghui Investment & Development Co., Ltd. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Automated processing production line for sorting robots in food factories: (a) The grading and transportation process of fruits; (b) the sorting and packaging process of sausages; (c) the sorting and packing process of vegetables; (d) automated grading and sorting of meat raw materials; (e) automated production and transportation process of bread products; (f) the production and packaging process of biscuits.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The rupture and deformation of damaged tomato tissue cells under different compression pressures under scanning electron microscopy: (a) Healthy cells before tomato damage; (b) cell shrinkage after tomato compression injury.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Experimental model diagram of three-finger electric gripper grasping tomato.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Design of biomimetic grippers based on the shapes of objects: (a) Underactuated end-effector for arc-shaped fingers; (b) gripper with sinusoidal curve characteristics [12].
Figure 5
Figure 5
Flexible underactuated end-effector for tomato grasping [14].
Figure 6
Figure 6
Structural diagram of fin-shaped flexible three finger grasping end-effector [15].
Figure 7
Figure 7
Flexible gripper based on bionics principle.
Figure 8
Figure 8
End-effector with compliant mechanism [19].
Figure 9
Figure 9
Finite element simulation of grasping process: (a) Simulation of grasping tomato with fingers of the gripper; (b) simulation models for grasping apples with different types of fingers [21].
Figure 10
Figure 10
Structure diagram of pneumatic gripper.
Figure 11
Figure 11
Soft pneumatic gripper finger bending shape under different air pressures: (a) Finger shape without air pressure; (b) finger shape with increased pressure.
Figure 12
Figure 12
Pneumatic gripper designed through simulation optimization of fingers: (a) Gas elastic-driven sorting end-effector based on simulation optimization; (b) 3D printing technology pneumatic soft gripper based on simulation optimization [32].
Figure 13
Figure 13
Pneumatic four-piece soft gripper designed with strawberry contour curve.
Figure 14
Figure 14
Pneumatic gripper with new sleeve bending fingers [34].
Figure 15
Figure 15
Dual-mode pneumatic soft gripper with gripping and adsorption functions: (a) The fingers arranged vertically with each other can be inflated and deflated to achieve the grip function [35]. (b) The vacuum suction cup at the end of the finger can achieve adsorption function [35].
Figure 16
Figure 16
Fully automatic robotic arm with vacuum gripper (6-DOF).
Figure 17
Figure 17
CAD diagram of vacuum gripper.
Figure 18
Figure 18
Principle diagram of Bernoulli effect on object grasping: Due to the increase in speed, the static pressure falls and a vacuum is produced (A); The accelerated air escapes to the side (B) [41].
Figure 19
Figure 19
Bernoulli gripper capable of grasping 2D and 3D objects.
Figure 20
Figure 20
Magnetic gripper: (a) Universal parallel gripper using improved MR fluid. (b) Grip composed of electromagnet, permanent magnet, elastic film and water.
Figure 21
Figure 21
Working process of a chicken automatic visceral removal robot system based on machine vision [58].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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