Semi-automatic Pineapple Harvester for Mechanization of Pineapple Harvesting in North East Hill (NEH) Regions of India

The pineapple (Ananas Comosus) is one of the most valuable commercial fruits in the world. Harvesting of pineapple is a major operation in pineapple cultivation and is laborious, and energy-intensive involving 306 man-hours per acre approximately. Manual harvesting by sickle is always injury-prone, which reduces the harvesting efficiency because the pineapple consists of long-pointed leaves usually needle-tipped and generally bearing sharp, up-curved spines on the margins. The maximum displacement of the outer skin of the pineapple due to compression force (70N) was observed at 10.63 mm on the Kew cultivar and 9.19 mm on Queen Cultivar. The maximum cutting energy and force of pineapple stalk were obtained as 1243.313 mJ and 168.15375 N respectively for the Queen cultivar and 2037.511 mJ and 190.91 N respectively for the Kew cultivar. A prototype of a semi-automatic pineapple harvester consisting of a grabbing unit with a linear actuator, cutting unit (cutting blade & DC motor), handle and the battery was designed and developed. The harvester was powered by a 12V 7Ah lead acid battery and had the capacity to harvest 200 fruits per hour. The harvesting time of the semi-automatic pineapple harvester is 30% higher than that of manual harvesting.