  BACKGROUND: Intelligent identification and precise plucking are the keys to
intelligent tea harvesting robots, which are of increasing significance
nowadays. Aiming at plucking tender leaves for high-quality green tea
producing, in this paper, a tender leaf identification algorithm and a
mechanically perceptible plucking finger have been proposed. RESULTS: Based on
segmentation algorithm and color features, the tender leaf identification
algorithm shows an average identification accuracy of over 92.8%. The
mechanically perceptible plucking finger plucks tender leaves in a way that a
human hand does so as to remain high quality of tea products. Though finite
element analysis, we determine the ideal size of grippers and the location of
strain gauge attachment on a gripper to enable the employment of feedback
control of desired gripping force. Revealed from our experiments, the success
rate of tender leaf plucking reaches 92.5%, demonstrating the effectiveness of
our design. CONCLUSION: The results show that the tender leaf identification
algorithm and the mechanically perceptible plucking finger are effective for
tender leaves identification and plucking, providing a foundation for the
development of an intelligent tender leaf plucking robot.
