Innovating Agriculture: Designing an Industrial Jackfruit Processing Machine

The Challenge: Jackfruit is Difficult

Baby jackfruit is irregular (4-8 inches), spiky, and filled with sticky latex. Manual processing takes 5-8 minutes per fruit and yields high waste (25-30%). There was no existing machinery for this unique fruit.

Our Approach: Research-Driven Design

We tested 5 methods (Rotary Peeling, Steam, Knife Slicing, Coring, and Hybrid). The Hybrid Blade System with adaptive mechanics was the clear winner.

Technical Innovations

1. 1Adaptive Sizing System: Cameras capture 360-degree images. AI determines the fruit's geometry, and servo-controlled guides adjust the blade positioning within 2 seconds.
2. 2Multi-Stage Blade Assembly:

• *Stage 1:* Skin removal with scoring blades and peeling fingers.
• *Stage 2:* Hollow coring blade extracts the fibrous pith.
• *Stage 3:* Rotating disc blades section the pulp with 2mm accuracy.

1. 1Latex Management: A combination of non-stick titanium coating, oil injection, and vacuum suction reduced blade fouling by 94%.
2. 2Cleaning: Automated Clean-In-Place (CIP) system cleans the machine in 15 minutes.

Performance & ROI

• Throughput: 200-240 fruits/hour (vs. 12/hour manually).
• Productivity: 1,600% increase.
• Yield: Increased from 70% to 88% usable product.
• Labor Savings: $12,000/month.

Conclusion

By applying industrial automation principles (Computer Vision, Mechatronics, IoT) to organic, irregular produce, we turned a labor-intensive bottleneck into a scalable commercial advantage.