Structural Analysis of a Tea Plucking Frame
摘要
A tea plucking frame under consideration is a detachable structural frame having provisions for mounting four manipulator arms and four cameras for image sensing. This frame along with the manipulator arms can be attached to the periphery of a tea harvesting vehicle to pluck two leaves and a bud from the tea plants. As this frame is attached to one edge of the main frame of the harvesting vehicle, it acts as a cantilever beam. Due to the self-weight of the frame and added weights of the manipulators, it will be subjected to maximum deflection at its free end. The deflection can vary depending on the positions of manipulators which can move in the manipulator plane in their respective bounding regions. The deflection in the frame can affect the plucking coordinates received by the manipulators from the cameras. This can lead to an error in the plucking position assumed by the manipulators, which can affect the product’s quality and can also damage the plant’s health. This paper focuses on finding the maximum deflections of the frame at six different combinations of manipulators’ positions. The results of the study show that the plucking frame is subjected to a maximum deflection of 0.27 mm and maximum stress of 29.229 MPa. The estimation of the maximum deflection may be attributed as the uncertainty band while designing a suitable controller for the motion of the manipulator.