Impact of intensive modification of sweet pepper plants on performance of end effectors for autonomous harvesting

This paper evaluates an intensive modification of the sweet pepper crop with respect to the usage of autonomous harvesting by a robot. Objectives were to assess the productivity of the plants after long-term intensive training of the plants compared with standard training and to use end-effectors instead of manually harvesting. The performance of two types of end-effectors was calculated by marketable yield, which includes accessible fruits without physiological disorders like blossom-end rot and sunscald. The experiment was executed in a greenhouse under commercial-like conditions. The marketable yield was significantly reduced by end-effector harvesting compared to manually harvesting. There was a tendency that end-effector A could pick more fruits from intensive trained plants than from standard trained plants. The second type of end-effector B was able to cut the fruit peduncle even at a smaller angle compared to end-effector A. The effect of intensive modification of sweet pepper plants on total and marketable yield and on occurrence of physiological disorders is discussed.