Robotic Tree-fruit harvesting with arrays of Cartesian Arms: A study of fruit pick cycle times

•3-degrees of freedom (dof) linear multi-arm robotic fruit harvester models were used to harvest the fruits on high density pear and peach trees.•Pick cycle times of multi-arm robotic fruit harvesters (PCTM’s) were low when the arms were arranged in height split configuration compared to length split, height split matrix, and length split matrix configurations.•Harvesting the tree sides separately resulted in lower PCTM’s than harvesting both sides of the trees at once with a harvester having the same number of arms while traversing in an orchard row.•Lower pick cycle times (PCT’s) that could compete with human PCT’s can be achieved using linear multi-arm harvesters.