There is a huge potential for automation of cutting fruits and vegetables in the kitchen and food industry as this can not only save time and labor on meal preparation and food packaging but also improve workspace safety. Foods may undergo large deformations, and the knife can experience different forces, which together make it difficult to carry out cutting as intended. With an accurate model, the contact force between the knife and the cutting board can be extracted from the sensor data for control to realize a smooth knife movement. In this article, we apply the finite element method (FEM) to estimate deformation and the cutting force, and linear elastic fracture mechanics to predict fracture. 3-D FEM is computationally prohibitive, since numerous tiny elements must be repeatedly regenerated around the knife edge as it moves further into a food item. To address this issue, we perform 2-D FEM modeling of parallel slices of the object and use interpolation to iteratively update forces and fracture, the latter of which is predicted when the energy release rate exceeds the material's fracture toughness. A strain-based analysis quantifies the reduction in the cutting force when the knife is in a slicing motion. Modeling is completed over the effects of the knife's edge geometry and cutting path (with translation and rotation). The scheme is then incorporated into an existing control strategy Mu et al. 2023 to perform the knife skill of rock chop on soft objects. Experiments conducted over various types of natural food have demonstrated the accuracy of our model and its potential for real-time cutting.

中文翻译：

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水果和蔬菜的机器人切割：对变形、断裂韧性、刀口几何形状和运动的影响进行建模


在厨房和食品行业中，水果和蔬菜切割的自动化潜力巨大，因为这不仅可以节省备餐和食品包装的时间和劳动力，还可以提高工作场所的安全性。食物可能会发生较大的变形，并且刀会受到不同的力，这些力共同使得难以按预期进行切割。通过精确的模型，可以从传感器数据中提取刀与砧板之间的接触力进行控制，以实现刀的平稳运动。在本文中，我们应用有限元法 （FEM） 来估计变形和切削力，并应用线性弹性断裂力学来预测断裂。3-D FEM 在计算上是令人望而却步的，因为当刀刃进一步进入食品时，必须在刀刃周围重复再生许多微小的元素。为了解决这个问题，我们对物体的平行切片进行二维 FEM 建模，并使用插值迭代更新力和断裂，当能量释放速率超过材料的断裂韧性时，可以预测后者。基于应变的分析量化了当刀处于切片运动中时切削力的降低。建模是在刀口几何形状和切割路径 （包括平移和旋转） 的影响下完成的。然后将该方案纳入现有的控制策略 Mu et al. 2023 中，以对软物体执行劈石的刀技。对各种类型的天然食品进行的实验证明了我们模型的准确性及其实时切割的潜力。