Preliminary Design of an Electropneumatic Automatic Machine for Herbaceous Grafting

In this paper a prototype of an automatic machine for the herbaceous grafting of tomatoes is presented. The herbaceous grafting is important in order to reduce the use of pesticides. For this reason, its advantages are both on the environment and on the crops quality. This innovative robotic system, electro-pneumatically controlled, was developed by the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (DIMEAS) of the Politecnico di Torino in collaboration with the Department of Agricultural Forest and Food Sciences (DISAFA) of the Università degli Studi di Torino. The aim of this device is to implement a fully automatic machine capable of picking, choosing, cutting and joining the two plants involved in order to obtain the grafted one.