Development of a new load-cell yield monitor for citrus.

摘要

At present there is no yield monitoring system commercially available for citrus mechanical harvesters such as canopy shakers and catch-harvesting systems. The need to build a yield monitoring system for these machines is very important for the citrus growers. A yield monitoring system, that uses a load cell attached to each end of a plate was mounted at the end of the conveyor system of a shaker machine, was developed. An experimental setup was created to simulate the citrus flow during harvesting in the field. A plate made of a carbon fiber was used to measure the force created by rolling/falling oranges on the conveyor. The system was designed to be easily retrofitted to the shaker machine in the field. This paper describes the development of the yield monitoring system and its data acquisition, as well as the results of the experiment.