Strawberry Robotic Operation Interface: An Open-Source Device for Collecting Dexterous Manipulation Data in Robotic Strawberry Farming

TL;DR

This paper introduces SROI, an open-source device with a modular end effector and stereo camera, designed to collect dexterous manipulation data for robotic strawberry picking, aiming to automate labor-intensive tasks.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel open-source robotic interface and dataset for dexterous manipulation in strawberry farming, facilitating research and development in agricultural robotics.

Findings

Successfully collected demonstration data in field environments.

Released an open-source dataset for robotic strawberry picking.

Demonstrated potential for automating complex harvesting tasks.

Abstract

The strawberry farming is labor-intensive, particularly in tasks requiring dexterous manipulation such as picking occluded strawberries. To address this challenge, we present the Strawberry Robotic Operation Interface (SROI), an open-source device designed for collecting dexterous manipulation data in robotic strawberry farming. The SROI features a handheld unit with a modular end effector, a stereo robotic camera, enabling the easy collection of demonstration data in field environments. A data post-processing pipeline is introduced to extract spatial trajectories and gripper states from the collected data. Additionally, we release an open-source dataset of strawberry picking demonstrations to facilitate research in dexterous robotic manipulation. The SROI represents a step toward automating complex strawberry farming tasks, reducing reliance on manual labor.