Moshe P. Mann - Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel

Boaz Zion - Institute of Agricultural Engineering,Agricultural Research Organization, The Volcani Center , Bet Dagan 50250 ,  Israel

Dror Rubinstein - Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology , Haifa 32000,  Israel

Raphael Linker - Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel

Itzhak Shmulevich - Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000,  Israel

This paper describes an analytical procedure to calculate the time-optimal trajectory for a mobile Cartesian manipulator to traverse between any two fruits it picks up it. The goal is to minimize the time required from the retrieval of one fruit to that of the next while adhering to velocity, acceleration, location, and endpoint constraints. This is accomplished using a six stage procedure, based on Bellman's Principle of Optimality and nonsmooth optimization that is completely analytical and requires no numerical computations. The procedure sequentially calculates all relevant parameters, from which side of the mobile platform to place the fruit on to the velocity profile and drop-off point, that yield a minimum time trajectory. In addition, it provides a time window under which the mobile manipulator can traverse from any fruit to any other, which can be used for a globally optimal retrieving sequence algorithm.