Author(s)

Kangdi Feng ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ School of Mechanical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116000, Liaoning, China

Corresponding Author

Kangdi Feng

ABSTRACT

With the rapid development of agricultural automation, the design of harvesting robot end-effectors has become increasingly important for improving harvesting efficiency and reducing fruit damage. This paper reviews the development of fruit and vegetable harvesting end-effectors and discusses how different end-effector structures are suited to different crop characteristics. Existing end-effectors can generally be divided into three types: mechanical gripping, vacuum adsorption, and flexible compliant. The paper focuses on analyzing the effects of drive modes, contact mechanisms, and structural parameters on harvesting performance. Existing studies show that rigid structures are efficient but can easily damage fruit surfaces; flexible structures exhibit excellent non-damaging performance yet still have limitations in load capacity and response speed; and vacuum adsorption is limited by the surface morphology of the fruit. Crop hardness, shape, and fruit stem attachment method largely influence the choice of end-effector design, and no single end-effector is suitable for all harvesting conditions. Future research is likely to focus on rigid-flexible coupled variable stiffness design, modular rapid reconfiguration, and the integration of sensing and actuation systems, in order to achieve efficient and low-damage harvesting in unstructured environments.

KEYWORDS

End-effector; fruit and vegetable harvesting robot; crop adaptability

CITE THIS PAPER

Kangdi Feng. Structural Forms and Crop Adaptation Mechanisms of End-Effectors for Fruit and Vegetable Harvesting. Automation and Machine Learning (2026). Vol. 7, No. 2, 60-67. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/autml.2026.070207.

REFERENCES

[1] Zhao, C. J., Fan, B. B., Li, J., & Feng, Q. C. (2023). Progress, challenges and trends in agricultural robot technology. Smart Agriculture, 5(4), 1-15.
[2] Lin, T., Sun, F. C., Li, X. X., Guo, X., Ying, J., Wu, H. R., & Li, H. S. (2026). A review of key technologies and recent advances in intelligent fruit-picking robots. Horticulturae, 12, 158.
[3] Han, C., Lv, J., Dong, C., Li, J., Luo, Y., Wu, W., & Abdeen, M. A. (2024). Classification, advanced technologies, and typical applications of end-effector for fruit and vegetable picking robots. Agriculture, 14(8), 1310.
[4] Xiao, X., Wang, Y., & Jiang, Y. (2022). End-effectors developed for citrus and other spherical crops. Applied Sciences, 12(15), 7945.
[5] Xu, Y., Lv, M., Xu, Q., & Xu, R. (2024). Design and analysis of a robotic gripper mechanism for fruit picking. Actuators, 13(9), 338.
[6] Ye, W., Zhao, L., Luo, X., Guo, J., & Liu, X. (2023). Perceptual soft end-effectors for future unmanned agriculture. Sensors, 23(18), 7905.
[7] Zhou, K. H., Xia, L. R., Liu, J., Qian, M. Y., & Pi, J. (2022). Design of a flexible end-effector based on characteristics of tomatoes. International Journal of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, 15(2), 13–24.
[8] Gao, W., Liu, J., Deng, J., Jiang, Y., & Jin, Y. (2025). Research status and trends in universal robotic picking end-effectors for various fruits. Agronomy, 15(10), 2283.
[9] Guo, T. Z., Zheng, Y. F., Bo, W. X., & Fan, X. Y. (forthcoming). Simulation and experimental research on flexible end-effectors for picking robots. Mechanical Design and Manufacture, 1-6.
[10] Chen, K., Li, T., Yan, T., Xie, F., Feng, Q., Zhu, Q., & Zhao, C. (2022). A soft gripper design for apple harvesting with force feedback and fruit slip detection. Agriculture, 12(11), 1802.
[11] Jo, Y., Park, Y., & Son, H. I. (2024). A suction cup-based soft robotic gripper for cucumber harvesting: Design and validation. Biosystems Engineering, 242, 163-176.
[12] Kurpaska, S., Sobol, Z., Pedryc, N., Hebda, T., & Nawara, P. (2020). Analysis of the pneumatic system parameters of the suction cup integrated with the head for harvesting strawberry fruit. Sensors, 20(16), 4389.
[13] Chen, R., Song, R., Zhang, Z., et al. (2019). Bio-inspired shape-adaptive soft robotic grippers augmented with electroadhesion functionality. Soft Robotics, 6(6), 701-712.
[14] Hua, W., et al. (2025). Vacuum suction end-effector development for robotic harvesters of fresh market apples. Biosystems Engineering, 249, 28-40.

Sponsors, Associates, and Links

---

• Power Systems Computation
  
  
• Internet of Things (IoT) and Engineering Applications
  
  
• Computing, Performance and Communication Systems
  
  
• Journal of Artificial Intelligence Practice
  
  
• Advances in Computer, Signals and Systems
  
  
• Journal of Network Computing and Applications
  
  
• Journal of Web Systems and Applications
  
  
• Journal of Electrotechnology, Electrical Engineering and Management
  
  
• Journal of Wireless Sensors and Sensor Networks
  
  
• Journal of Image Processing Theory and Applications
  
  
• Mobile Computing and Networking
  
  
• Vehicle Power and Propulsion
  
  
• Frontiers in Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
  
  
• Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining Letters
  
  
• Big Data Analysis and Cloud Computing
  
  
• Electrical Insulation and Dielectrics
  
  
• Crypto and Information Security
  
  
• Journal of Neural Information Processing
  
  
• Collaborative and Social Computing
  
  
• International Journal of Network and Communication Technology
  
  
• File and Storage Technologies
  
  
• Frontiers in Genetic and Evolutionary Computation
  
  
• Optical Network Design and Modeling
  
  
• Journal of Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence
  
  
• Natural Language Processing and Speech Recognition
  
  
• Journal of High-Voltage
  
  
• Programming Languages and Operating Systems
  
  
• Visual Communications and Image Processing
  
  
• Journal of Systems Analysis and Integration
  
  
• Knowledge Representation and Automated Reasoning
  
  
• Review of Information Display Techniques
  
  
• Data and Knowledge Engineering
  
  
• Journal of Database Systems
  
  
• Journal of Cluster and Grid Computing
  
  
• Cloud and Service-Oriented Computing
  
  
• Journal of Networking, Architecture and Storage
  
  
• Journal of Software Engineering and Metrics
  
  
• Visualization Techniques
  
  
• Journal of Parallel and Distributed Processing
  
  
• Journal of Modeling, Analysis and Simulation
  
  
• Journal of Privacy, Trust and Security
  
  
• Journal of Cognitive Informatics and Cognitive Computing
  
  
• Lecture Notes on Wireless Networks and Communications
  
  
• International Journal of Computer and Communications Security
  
  
• Journal of Multimedia Techniques
  
  
• Computational Linguistics Letters
  
  
• Journal of Computer Architecture and Design
  
  
• Journal of Ubiquitous and Future Networks