Objective 5: Improving the picking head of the olive harvester - Uriel Rosa (Principal Investigator)
2007 Reports
Damage Assessment and Mitigation of Mechanically Harvested California Table Olives (pdf) - Uriel Rosa, Sergio Castro-Garcia, Dave Smith, Ricardo Diaz, Chris Gliever, Jackie Burns, Kitren Glozer, William Krueger and Louise Ferguson
Redesign & Retrofit - Korvan Olive Harvester (pdf) - Dave Smith and Uriel Rosa
Using 3D High Speed Imaging to Analyze and Mitigate Olive Damage Due to Mechanical Harvesting
- Uriel Rosa, Spring 2007
Harvester interaction with the olive fruit during mechanical harvest has been divided into the following four distinct phases for analysis:
1. Olive removal through shaking the branches with drum fingers:
While the drum fingers are transferring energy to the olive branches several potential sources of olive damage are present; olives may impact rods, branches and other olives. This interaction was isolated by using a soft black tarp above the catch frame. Using high speed images, we have the ablility to measure the number and intensity of olive impacts with the rods, branches and other olives. These results shall be used to determine appropriate modifications. If the force of deceleration due to the rods is above the bruise threshold and the number of observed impacts is high, more rod padding is indicated.
The mode of olive detachment can be directly observed. Using these observations, modification to the drum finger assembly can be made to direct more energy into that mode and less energy into randomly shaking the branches. The top drums have already been angled down to direct energy in the downward direction rather than laterally.
2. Olive contact with catch frame & front transport belt:
After the olives have been detached, they fall through the canopy onto the catch frame. This damage was isolated by dropping the fruit from three different heights. Each representing the height of one of the three drums: 4, 8, and 12 feet. The amount of damage due to the three different heights will be determined. High speed images can be used to measure the force experienced by the olives.If the force measured by the images is shown to induce damage above the threshold on specific sections of the catch frame, more padding on those sections is indicated.
3. Olive contact with rear transport belt:
From the catch frame, olives impact the rear transport belt. We have isolated its potentially damaging effect through the assay of olives that have been dropped only on rear transport belt. High speed images can be used to measure the force induced by this drop, and thus determine if more protective padding is indicated.
4. Olive contact with storage bin:
Finally, olives fall into the storage bin, another source of impact-induced damage, except for two caveats: The trash fan forces air up through the falling olives and thus slows their fall. Therefore the worst case is with the fan off. The second caveat is the change in conditions when the bin is empty versus when the bin has olives in it. The high speed images can measure the forces olives experience in both conditions. We isolated the impact to only that induced by the fall into the storage bin.
