Physical Properties of Black Pepper for designing a Robotic Black Pepper Harvester

Agricultural robots were designed based on the characteristics of the target crop. In this study, two varieties of black pepper including Kaimunda and Panniyur 1 were evaluated for physical parameters to design a robotic black pepper harvester. The main objective of this study was to measure and analyze the physical properties of black pepper to design the robotic pepper harvester. In this regard, studies were conducted for pepper spike, pepper peduncle, pepper berry, and pepper vine separately. The results showed that the average length and diameter of pepper spikes of Karimunda and Panniyur 1 respectively as 10.4 cm and 1.10 cm; and 12.8 cm and 1.30 cm. In an average the tested peppers have a berry diameter of 0.42 cm and RGB value of (20, 39, 3) - (255, 224, 111) for Karimunda variety and 0.59 cm and (35, 54, 10) - (255, 240, 100) for Panniyur 1 variety. Based on the shear strength analysis, at a cutting speed of 0.1 mm s -1, the average shear strength of the peduncle was obtained as 1718.6 N mm-2 for Karimunda and 1671 N mm -2 for Panniyur 1. And at cutting speed 1 mm s-1, the average shear strength peduncle of Karimunda and Panniyur 1 respectively is 1535 N mm-2 and 1544 N mm-2. The average length of the peduncle of Karimunda and Panniyur 1 respectively as 1.2 cm and 1.3 cm, and the diameter of both varieties was 0.17 cm. The maximum leaf coverage of the pepper vine ranges from 10 to 91, and the 95th percentile of the data was 76 cm.