{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,30]],"date-time":"2025-12-30T11:19:51Z","timestamp":1767093591610,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":22,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,19]],"date-time":"2023-04-19T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1681862400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>A crucial aspect that has to be considered in all fields and, especially, in smart farming, a rapidly developing industry, is maintenance. Due to the costs generated by both under-maintaining and over-maintaining the components of a system, a balance has to be achieved. The paper is focused on presenting an optimal maintenance policy used to ensure cost minimization by determining the optimal time to make a preventive replacement of the actuators of a harvesting robotic system. First, a brief presentation of the gripper with Festo fluidic muscles used in a novel way instead of fingers is given. Then, the nature-inspired optimization algorithm, as well as the maintenance policy are described. The paper also includes the steps and the obtained results of the developed optimal maintenance policy applied for the Festo fluidic muscles. The outcome of the optimization shows that a significant reduction in the costs is obtained if one performs a preventive replacement of the actuators a few days before the lifetime provided by the manufacturer and the lifetime estimated using a Weibull distribution.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s23084103","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,20]],"date-time":"2023-04-20T02:01:11Z","timestamp":1681956071000},"page":"4103","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Maintenance Cost Minimization for an Agricultural Harvesting Gripper"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"23","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0195-5701","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Florina Maria","family":"\u0218erdean","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Industrial Engineering, Robotics and Management Production, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, 103-105 Muncii Blvd., 400641 Cluj-Napoca, Romania"}]},{"given":"Mihai Dan","family":"\u0218erdean","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Automotive, Mechatronics and Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, 103-105 Muncii Blvd., 400641 Cluj-Napoca, Romania"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6422-4826","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Silviu-Dan","family":"M\u00e2ndru","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Automotive, Mechatronics and Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, 103-105 Muncii Blvd., 400641 Cluj-Napoca, Romania"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,19]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"03015","DOI":"10.1051\/matecconf\/201816103015","article-title":"Hierarchical classification of robotic grippers applied for agricultural object manipulations","volume":"161","author":"Vu","year":"2018","journal-title":"MATEC Web Conf."},{"key":"ref_2","first-page":"212","article-title":"An Overview of Grippers in Agriculture Robotic Systems","volume":"Volume 88","author":"Lovasz","year":"2020","journal-title":"New Advances in Mechanisms, Mechanical Transmissions and Robotics"},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"105","DOI":"10.1017\/S026357479900226X","article-title":"Designing a robotic gripper for harvesting horticulture products","volume":"18","author":"Ceccarelli","year":"2000","journal-title":"Robotica"},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"11557","DOI":"10.3390\/s140711557","article-title":"A Proposal for Automatic Fruit Harvesting by Combining a Low Cost Stereovision Camera and a Robotic Arm","volume":"14","author":"Font","year":"2014","journal-title":"Sensors"},{"key":"ref_5","unstructured":"Hemming, J., Bac, C.W., van Tuijl, B.A.J., Ruud, B., Bontsema, J., and Pekkeriet, E. 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