Egg Harvesting With Receiving Members for Individual Rearing
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Solution Overview
Problem
The challenge of manually seeding individual rearing pots with exactly one insect egg is labor-intensive and difficult due to the fragility and texture of eggs, making robotic manipulation cumbersome.
Innovation Solution
An apparatus with a container, receiving members, and an actuator system that allows for the efficient removal and inspection of receiving members to identify and separate insect eggs, while maintaining insect containment and optimizing egg collection.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If manual seeding of rearing pots with insect eggs is performed, then precision in placing exactly one egg per pot is achieved, but labor intensity and time consumption increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system divides the container into multiple compartments, each receiving member corresponding to one compartment. This segmentation allows parallel processing of multiple eggs simultaneously, increasing throughput while maintaining precision through individualized receiving members for each egg position.
Solution Approach 2:
Receiving members act as intermediary elements between the insect container and the final egg placement. These intermediaries facilitate automated egg collection by providing a standardized interface that the actuator can manipulate, solving the problem of direct robotic manipulation of fragile eggs.
2Productivity
If robotic manipulation of insect eggs is used to increase productivity, then seeding speed improves, but handling difficulty increases due to egg fragility and texture
Solution Approach 1:
The receiving member serves as a mediator between the actuator and the egg. The actuator manipulates the rigid receiving member rather than the fragile egg directly, making automated handling feasible while preserving egg integrity.
Solution Approach 2:
The receiving member acts as a copy or surrogate for the egg during manipulation. By handling the receiving member instead of the egg directly, the system avoids the difficulties of direct egg manipulation while still achieving precise egg placement.
3Measurement precision
If receiving members are removed from the container for inspection, then egg detection accuracy improves, but risk of insect escape increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts only the receiving member containing the egg from the container for inspection, leaving the insect containment environment intact. This selective extraction allows egg verification while minimizing disruption to the containment system and reducing escape risk.
Solution Approach 2:
The receiving member serves as an intermediary that can be removed and inspected without requiring opening or disruption of the main container. This isolates the inspection process from the containment system, maintaining insect security while enabling egg verification.
Data Source
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AI summary
An apparatus (1) with a container (2) for containing insects, a receiving member (200) upon which an insect in the container can lay an egg and an actuator (10) for removing the receiving member from the container once an egg has been laid upon the receiving member. The apparatus is for removing individual insect eggs from a container which contains many live insects. The individual eggs, once removed from the container, may be used in an individualized rearing process.