Ecole Nationale Superieure D'electricite Et De Radioelectricite De

Saint Gobain Isover

Ubat Controle

Christian Bouvet

Ludivine Menez

Pierre Baylou

Michel Monsion

Andre Mora

Gerard Bousseau

Antoine Cerisier

Eric Bourasseau

Vincent Hannecart

Christophe Jeudi

An automatic asparagus picking machine is disclosed comprising a chassis able along a mound in which the asparagus are grown. The chassis has a picking tool which is mounted for horizontal and vertical translation at right angles to the direction of displacement of the chassis. The tops of the asparagus are back lit by a lighting system on one side of the mound and their images are picked up by a camera system on the other side. A microprocessor controls the direction of displacement of the chassis parallel to the mound and controls the horizontal and vertical translation of the picking tool. In one embodiment, there is one camera and the microprocessor has a window generator generating windows in two zones of the field of view of the camera. In another embodiment, juxtaposed wide angle and narrow angle cameras are used. Electric motors drive each of two front wheels at different speeds to control the direction of displacement of the machine.

Automatic asparagus picking machine

Growing community of inventors

Canejan, France

Christian Bouvet