Design and Experiment of Banana De-Handing Device Based on Symmetrical Shape Deployable Mechanism

Abstract

Aiming at the problem that the banana de-handing device has poor radial deployment to the banana bunch stalk during the mechanized banana de-handing procedure, this paper presented a ring deployable mechanism based on a set of planar seven-bar linkages. It consists of multiple basic deployable units, which has great folding/deploying performance and is suitable for manufacturing a banana de-handing device, the diameter of which can be variably larger. The kinematics analysis of the mechanism was done, and the trajectory in space was obtained. When the mechanism is fully deployed, the diameter is 164 mm. The ratio of the folded height to the deployed diameter is 0.732, the ratio of the folded diameter to the deployed diameter is 0.262, and the ratio of the folded volume to the maximum of the deployed volume is 0.069. An experimental prototype of 500, 500, and 768 mm in length, width, and height was manufactured, and the deploying performance was analyzed to show the feasibility. Finally, experimental results show that 71.43% of the banana hands are de-handed successfully. The mechanism has a great deploying effect on banana bunch stalk, and the quality of the banana crown incision is good.

Keywords

• symmetrical shape
• deployable mechanism
• kinematic analysis
• variable diameter
• agricultural machinery
• banana de-handing
• constant force clamping
• seamless cutting