Fruit harvesting device

Abstract

A fruit harvester comprising a plurality of oscillating fruit removal heads to selectively engage and vibrate the periphery of selected fruit-bearing sections of a fruit tree canopy thereby causing the fruit to break away from the fruit tree canopy wherein the oscillating fruit removal heads are pivotally coupled to an articulated telescoping boom mounted on a self propelled chassis including a plurality of fruit collection aprons and an internal fruit storage bin such that manipulation of the articulated telescoping boom permits engagement of isolated areas of the outer peripheral fruit-bearing sections of the fruit tree canopy by the oscillating fruit removal heads, each oscillating fruit removal head comprising a plurality of agitation wands rotatably and eccentrically coupled to a drive shaft of a motor such that rotation of the drive shaft is translated into lateral orbital motion of the oscillating fruit removal heads and a corresponding periodic motion of the isolated area of the peripheral fruit-bearing section of the fruit tree canopy with the orbital direction of the oscillating fruit removal heads in opposition to one another and the orbital radius and frequency of the oscillating fruit removal heads is modulated such that vibrations of the peripheral sections of the fruit tree canopy dampen or cancel one each other whereby the harmonic vibration between the peripheral fruit-bearing sections of the fruit tree and trunk is reduced as fruit is removed from the fruit tree canopy.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.