International Journal of Advanced Technology and Engineering Exploration, Vol 8(84) ISSN (Print): 2394-5443 ISSN (Online): 2394-7454 http://dx.doi.org/10.19101/IJATEE.2021.874507 1479 Design and performance evaluation of a novel end-effector with integrated gripper cum cutter for harvesting greenhouse produce Nilesh R. Kolhalkar 1, 2* , V.L.Krishnan 3 , Anupama A. Pandit 4 , R.G.Somkuwar 5 and Jahier A. Shaaikh 6 Research scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, Vaddeswaram, Guntur-02, A.P., India 1 Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, MKSSS’s C.C.O.E.W, Pune, India 2 Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, V. R. Siddhartha Engineering College, Vijayawada, A.P, India 3 Research scholar, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT), DRDO, Pune-25, MH, India 4 Director (Acting) and Principal, ICAR-National Research Centre for Grapes (NRCG), Pune-07, MH.India 5 Lecturer, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Debre Tabor University, South Gonder, Ethiopia 6 Received: 28-July-2021; Revised: 16-November-2021; Accepted: 19-November-2021 ©2021 Nilesh R. Kolhalkar et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 1.Introduction Precision Agriculture(PA) is now a day’s buzzword used for the implementation of Mechatronics, Robotics, and Artificial Intelligence in various agricultural and allied tasks [1]. These robots are highly complex with different subsystems, which need to be integrated. This integration is possible using the Design Thinking approach. Mechatronics design of such a system mainly includes a synergetic amalgamation of different disciplines of engineering like Mechanical, Electronics, Computer, IT, and intelligent control systems. *Author for correspondence This work was supported in part by Assistance by S.P.P.U for Project-based Innovative Research (ASPIRE) with Research Grant No. 18TEC000968, Pune, India in collaboration with I.C.A.R, National Research Center for Grapes (N.R.C.G.) Pune. Fruit harvesting is a very labor-intensive task that needs to be automated. Mechatronics modules for the various agricultural and allied tasks along with different types of fruits and vegetable harvesting robots working in the different agricultural environments have been developed in the last few decades [2–4]. Each year half the fruits, vegetables of the world produce are wasted with the reported loss in the range of 4.58% to 15.88%. Major quality deterioration and loss occurred during the manual harvesting process of horticulture and greenhouse produce which is also a labor-intensive task. The conventional harvesting process in viticulture also results in damaging the thin waxy layer from the major export quality fruits like Table grapes, reducing the shelf life of the grapes. Research Article Abstract Motivation for current work is to reduce the harvesting cost and increase the shelf life of the post-harvested yield of grapes and greenhouse produce using harvesting robots. A novel end-effector design comprising of cutter integrated with a gripper is developed, tested, and validated for harvesting different types of Greenhouse produce. For evaluating the efficacy of the novel end-effector, experiments are carried out on various vegetables and fruits like Table Grapes, Sweet Bell Pepper, Bitter Melon, Long Hot Chili Pepper, Eggplant, and Okra with average harvesting time of 28,19,17,20,17 and 18 seconds respectively. The designed novel end-effector viz. gripper cum cutter is compact in size and lightweight. It is attached to a custom-built pneumatically operated robotic arm, mounted on a multi-purpose agricultural vehicle. Once the fruit is detected through image sensing, a mechatronic module activates the gripper first to firmly grasp the peduncle of fruit, and the cutter cuts it, without any physical contact with fruit, resulting in the increased shelf life of fruit. The harvesting module is capable of harvesting various fruits and vegetables with an effective field capacity of 4.625 ha/hr with an effective operating time of 9.25 hrs in a 10 hours of a day with a field efficiency of 92.5%. Keywords Design thinking, Fruit harvesting, Mechatronics, Smart farming, Precision.