In order to avoid damaging apples and branches caused by manipulator during the picking operation, for the absence of attitude information, an apple’s attitude estimation method was put forward. After the apple object was segmented from background with the two-step algorithm based on the characters of color and texture, the freeman chain code algorithm was used to extract one-pixel fruit contour. Then least distance method, least slope variance method and three collinear points’ method were given, and the recognition rates of three methods were compared. At last, for the purpose of improving recognition rate, decision method based on fusion of four methods was proposed. The research results showed that the recognition rates by using four methods were higher than using any one of methods separately, and the right recognition rate could reach to 90%.