Fruit perception system for robotic harvesting

A robotic harvester having a fruit perception system comprising:

• a slide mechanism;
• a line scan laser that is selectively movable by the slide mechanism;
• an RGB-D camera, the line scan laser projecting a laser line within a field of view of the RGB-D camera;
• a controller/processor in communication with the slide mechanism, the line scan laser, and the RGB-D camera, the controller/processor directing operations and movements of the line scan laser, and processing images from the RGB-D camera;
• wherein as the slide mechanism moves the line scan laser, the line scan laser projects a laser line onto a target fruit from multiple sequential positions, the RGB-D camera acquires images of the laser line projected onto the target fruit, and communicates the laser line images to the controller/processor, the controller/processor processing the laser line images and determining an xyz position of the centroid of the target fruit.