Abstract

Abstract Background Strawberry, being an important economic crop, requires a large amount of human labor for harvesting operations. Efficient and non‐destructive harvesting by strawberry harvesting robots requires the precise location of the picking points. Current algorithms for locating picking points encounter significant issues with location errors and minimal effective information in complex situations. Results To improve the accuracy of the location of picking points, this study proposes a visual location method based on composite models. This method employs object detection and instance segmentation models to detect fruits and segment peduncles sequentially, thereby enabling the identification of picking points and inclination on the peduncle. Different object detection algorithms and instance segmentation models were validated to explore the optimal model combination, and the Convolutional Block Attention Module (CBAM) was integrated into YOLOv8s‐seg to construct YOLOv8s‐seg‐CBAM. Test results show that the composite model built with YOLOv8s and YOLOv8s‐seg‐CBAM achieved a peduncle detection accuracy of 86.2%, with an inference time of 30.6 ms per image. Conclusion The picking point visual location method based on YOLOv8s and YOLOv8s‐seg‐CBAM composite models can better balance accuracy and efficiency and can provide more accurate guidance for automated harvesting. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry.