Journal of Agricultural Machinery Engineering ISSN:2799-8673(Print) 2799-8819(Online) 농업기계공학

The demand of fresh cut fruits such as fruit cups, fruit salad boxes is increasing recently. But we have not automated feeding machine in the automatic packing system for fresh cut fruits. This study was aimed to develop an automatic weighing and feeding system for packing of fresh-cut fruits on fruit processing plant. A prototype system has been developed and tested for feeding height of fresh-cut fruits, conveying speed, packaging weight, and performance of system. We measured the weight change of a piece of apple by the drop impact according to the feeding height and conveying speed. The performance of prototype was measured in condition of the conveying speed of 0.10 m/s. The weight of cut fruits filled in container showed a standard deviation of 4.87~6.26 g compared to target weight, and the performance of system was 2,465 EA/hr. The experimental result demonstrates that the impact of freshcut fruits was increased with the feeding height and conveying speed and the effect on the feeding height was greater than the conveyor speed. So, we are need to establish closely the feeding conveyor to the container and we are need to adjust the feeding speed according to the follow-up process such as fruit supplement and removal work according to the metering error, container sealing process and labeling process et al.