Design and Test of Different End Effectors for Robotic Cotton Harvesting

One of the main requirements for a robotic cotton harvester is a decent end effector. Such an effector should be able to pick the seed cotton as fast and clean as possible. It should penetrate through the plant without trouble and damaging the plant. Also, it should consume a low amount of power. During this research, we have designed and tested multiple end effectors. Some of the end effectors are operated by motors and some others are just fingers and don’t have powered parts. The motor-powered designs showed better performance during the lab and field tests.