| Summary: | Asparagus harvesting presents unique challenges, due to the variability in spear growth, which makes large-scale automated harvesting difficult. This paper describes the development of an asparagus harvesting robot system. The system consists of a delta robot mounted on a mobile track-based platform. It employs a real-time asparagus detection algorithm and a sensory system to determine optimal harvesting points. Low-level control and high-level control are separated in the robot control. The performance of the system was evaluated in a laboratory field mock-up and in the open field, using asparagus spears of various shapes. The results demonstrate that the system detected and harvested 88% of the ready-to-harvest spears, with an average harvesting cycle cost of <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mn>3.44</mn><mspace width="3.33333pt"></mspace><mi mathvariant="normal">s</mi><mo>±</mo><mn>0.14</mn><mspace width="3.33333pt"></mspace><mi mathvariant="normal">s</mi></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula>. In addition, outdoor testing in an open field demonstrated a 77% success rate in identifying and harvesting asparagus spears.
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