September 26, 2017
Keio University
Shibuya Corporation
Assistant Professor Takahiro Nozaki of the Department of System Design Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, in collaboration with the Keio Advanced Research Centers (KARC) and the Haptics Research Center (Director: Professor Kouhei Ohnishi of the Department of System Design Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology) and Shibuya Corporation (Headquarters: Higashi-ku, Hamamatsu; President: Hidekatsu Watanabe), has successfully developed a robot hand system capable of handling soft fruits. This system is a fruit-sorting robot designed to remove rotten citrus fruits. It uses a unique machine vision system that combines ultraviolet and white light to measure the size, position, degree of decay, and damage of the fruit. Furthermore, the robot hand, equipped with real haptics technology, achieves a flexible and secure grip. This enables non-destructive, accurate, and rapid handling of even extremely decayed and soft fruits, leading to the maintenance of a hygienic sorting line, labor savings in sorting operations, and improved processing capacity.
This system is scheduled to be exhibited at events including "CEATEC JAPAN 2017."
Please see below for the full press release.