Chestnuts facilitated harvest systems in steep zones

The system used, that has been set up, comply with the followings principal requirements on the characteristics to be obtained: the components capable of being modulated; weight limitated in a maximum of 20 kg for the machine body for the carriage and the aspiration of the product, low general volume to facilitate the transport in areas uneven and easy accessibilities of the mechanical parts of it; pipes of aspiration capable of being modulated (it has to be guaranteed a capability of harvest with a minimum action ray of 5 m); capability of theoretical harvest advantageous economically in comparison to the manual harvest; easy emptying. Besides the determined net has the characteristic followings: low weight, resistance to the tear, low roughness to facilitate the flowing - rolling of the fruits, not expensive cost, large versatility of assemblage; improvement of the degree of preservation of the product and high level of cleaning; possible versatility of use in the harvest yards of other fruit in hull (hazel-nut) in the very sloped zones. Besides the nets have been unrolled on the soil according to a geometric shape opportunely determined by mean the use of computational codes: CAD and structural modeling. Experimental tests have been performed on the materials of the considered nets and also on the realized equipments. Models have been used for verifying the obtained data results. For this scope, the structural parts have been sensitized, opportunely by mean movement and forces transducers connected to a system of data acquisition with a sampling frequency of 1 Hz. Further for soil zone with slope less than 25 %,it has been designed an automatic harvesting machine, driven by an operator up to a maximum distance of 40 m, that has allowed the harvest in the zones with inclination value not higher of 25%. Experimental tests have been effected that have given encouraging results to continue this research.