WOLLO UNIVERSITY

Kombolcha Institute of Technology

College of Informatics
Department of Software Engineering

Course Title: -Recent topics in software engineering

Course Code: - SEng5161

Assignment Title: -Agriculture in Robotics for weed control

Name Id

1. Yossef Kassay WOUR/0636/10

Submitted to Tilahun A. (MSC)

Submission date:10/08/2014
 ROBOTICS IN AGRICALTURE

Contents
1.Robotics ..................................................................................................................................................... 1
2 Agricultural robotics for weed control ....................................................................................................... 1
2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 1
2.2 Background ......................................................................................................................................... 5
2.3 The statement of problem ................................................................................................................... 7
2.4 Proposed solution ................................................................................................................................ 7
2.5 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................... 8
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................................. 8

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1.Robotics
Robotics is a sub-domain of engineering and science that includes mechanical engineering,
electrical engineering, computer science, and others. Robotics deals with the design, construction,
operation, and use of robots and computer systems for their control, sensory feedback, and
information processing. A robot is a unit that implements this interaction with the physical world
based on sensors, actuators, and information processing.

Agricultural robots are specialized articles of technology that are capable of assisting farmers with
a wide range of operations. They have the capability to analyze, contemplate, and carry out a
multitude of functions, and they can be programmed to grow and evolve to match the needs of
various tasks

Robotics and automation can play a significant role in society meeting 2050 agricultural
production needs. For six decades robots have played a fundamental role in increasing the
efficiency and reducing the cost of industrial production and products.

2 Agricultural robotics for weed control

2.1 Introduction
Weeds are commonly defined as plants that are unwanted where they grow. This negative
perception emerged with agriculture and relates to the damage they cause to crops. weed control
has been a long-standing issue in the field of agriculture. The uniform application of herbicides
has demonstrated its effectiveness at weed removal, however, also introducing environmental
pollution, human health, and herbicide resistance concerns. Due to its adverse effects, governments
and farmers seek to reduce the herbicide input (Hillocks, 2012) in agricultural activity. Precision
farming provides a way to solve this challenge by involving weeding mechanisms (Weis et al.,
2008) to perform the treatment on an individual plant-level or a small weed cluster. In doing so,
the use of agrochemicals can be drastically reduced or even eliminated. However, human oriented
precision weeding machinery usually requires inefficient and labor-intensive human resources,
which cannot justify the economic benefits of herbicide savings.

Smart weeding machines rely on the performance of the machine vision system to detect weeds.
However, the environmental uncertainties, including illumination condition and color variance of

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leaves or soil, affect the performance of the machine vision system, thus upper-bounding the weed
control accuracy. Along with the flourish of artificial intelligence, significant progress has been
made towards learning-based weed detection methods. Such methods, using Convolutional Neural
Network (CNN), have proven to provide more reliable crop/weed detection results. For a single-
camera system, the high variance of detection delays could directly lead to target missing or limited
time for subsequent weed tracking and actuation procedures, thus introducing significant
uncertainties into weed control applications. The Flourish system addresses this challenge by
introducing a non-overlapping multi-camera system, where the weeds are classified in the first
camera and tracked in subsequent cameras, thus providing more time for weed detection without
compromising the weeding performance

There are many ways to identify crop plants in digital images, but typically this is done by first
analyzing a captured imaged and classifying each pixel in the image as being either a plant or a
non-plant part using some type of green thresholding technique. Once the image has been
“segmented”, adjacent pixels are analyzed. Regions with high levels of contrast between plant and
non-plant parts indicate potential leaf edge boundaries and contour lines are traced around the
borders of these areas. These “objects” are then further analyzed based on size, location relative to
each other, position relative to the seed row, shape and color. Objects that do not meet the user
defined criteria as being characteristic of a crop plant are removed from the segmented image.
Once crop plant objects have been located, commands are sent to a microcontroller which controls
the interrow weeding device.

HOW TO CONTROL WEEDS.

To control or eradicate a weed it is first necessary to determine the kind, the character and
habits of growth and reproduction, and sufficient about its life history to fix the time when it
is most susceptible to treatment. With regard to methods of control and eradication, weeds
may be divided into two classes:

➢ The first class is composed of those weeds which, because of their habits of growth, require
special methods or treatments. This class includes such weeds as Canada thistle, quack-
grass, hawkweeds, nut-grass, Johnson grass, perennial sow thistle, and many others. These
weeds are extremely difficult to kill, and specific methods must be determined for each
one, based on a study of the life history and habit of growth.

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➢ The second class is composed of annuals, biennials, and such perennials as require no
special treatment to kill them. These are often termed incidental weeds. In this case the
problem is not one of killing but of controlling. Comparatively few specific weeds require
special methods for their control, and for many of these effective methods have already
been determined. In addition to finding effective and practicable methods for controlling
many of the most pernicious and troublesome weeds, such as quack-grass, Johnson grass,
Canada thistle, and others, weed studies have supplied much general information regarding
these pests, methods that are effective and practicable in one area may not be applicable
in another area where natural conditions are dissimilar and entirely different systems of
farming are practiced.
➢ Preventative weed control refers to any control method that aims to prevent weeds from
being established in a cultivated crop, a pasture, or a greenhouse. Examples of preventative
weed control would be using certified weed free seed, only transporting hay that is weed
free, making sure farm equipment is cleaned before moving from one location to another,
and screening irrigation water to prevent weed seeds from traveling along irrigation
ditches.
❖ Cultural

Cultural weed control refers to any technique that involves maintaining field conditions such that
weeds are less likely to become established and/or increase in number. Examples of cultural weed
control would be crop rotation, avoiding overgrazing of pastures or rangeland, using well-adapted
competitive forage species, and maintaining good soil fertility.

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❖ Mechanical

Mechanical weed control refers to any technique that involves the use of farm equipment to
control weeds. The two mechanical control techniques most often used are tillage and mowing.

❖ Biological

Biological weed control refers to any technique that involves the use of natural enemies of weed
plants to control the germination of weed seeds or the spread of established plants. This is a rapidly
expanding area of weed control with many examples. Examples of biological weed control include
sheep to control tansy ragwort or leafy spurge, cinnabar moth and the tansy flea beetle to control
tansy ragwort, the chrysolira beetle to control St. John's Wort, and the use of goats to control brush
on rangeland.

❖ Chemical

Chemical weed control refers to any technique that involves the application of a chemical
(herbicide) to weeds or soil to control the germination or growth of the weed species. In economic
terms, chemical control of weeds is a very large industry and there are scores of examples of
chemical weed control products. Common examples of chemicals used to control weeds in forages
are 2,4-DB; EPTC; bromoxynil; and paraquat.

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2.2 Background
Farmers are often concerned that weeds may reduce crop yields. Weeds use the same nutrients that
crop plants use, often in very similar proportions. They also use resources such as water, sunshine
and space that might have gone to crops. The more similar the weed and crop requirements, the
more they will compete for those resources. Weeds that compete aggressively with crops reduce
their yield. Weeds are most damaging to crop yields if they have some advantage over the crop.
Four factors are especially important: density, timing, size and chemistry.

More weeds are generally a larger problem than few weeds, but weed density is not the only
concern. For instance, at very high densities, green foxtail plants tend to compete strongly with
each other and thus remain very small. These small plants probably have little competitive effect
on the crop even when there are many of them. At medium densities, green foxtail plants grow
larger and can severely reduce crop yields. In this example, a reduction in weed numbers may
actually increase the weed problem.

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Agricultural mechanization provides the power and equipment necessary for preparing the soil
and establishing, maintaining, storing and processing agricultural crops in the field and on the
farm. Over the years, it has evolved from basic hand tools and animal-powered implements to
sophisticated engine-powered equipment. Unfortunately, hand tools and animal power are still in
common use in developing countries, hampering agricultural productivity and negatively affecting
the livelihoods of small-scale farmers. Mechanization developments are therefore driven by the
desire to reduce drudgery and eliminate hard work during labor peaks (land preparation, weeding,
harvesting, transport etc.). The availability of adequate and efficient equipment and its timely use
are key factors in the transformation from subsistence-based to market-oriented agriculture. Early
planting and optimal sowing conditions (soil, temperature and moisture) are particularly important,
especially given the increasingly erratic rainfall and temperature patterns. Data-driven agriculture,
with the help of robotic solutions incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, is the basis
of sustainable agriculture in the future (SaizRubio and Rovira-Mas, 2020).

The future of agriculture production system aims to produce high quality and quantity agricultural
produce for wide range of consumers. The main challenge to the agricultural researchers around
the world to perceive sustainable agriculture by judicious use of ever limiting natural resources
and prevention of environment. Farm mechanization is one of the determining factors for
advancement of agriculture production system and to feed the burgeoning human population. This
has stressed the inventors around the world for development of modern machineries and
agricultural equipment’s to perform and understand the complex agricultural processes and
execute all the required operation with high precision, efficiency and minimal damage to the
environment. To control and regulate these machineries during field operations information has to
collect with the sensing element and to be stored in the data acquisition system for further
processing. Therefore, the response of machinery to the external environment is one of the
important criteria for efficient application of these advance machinery. Precision agriculture is one
of the emerging branches of agriculture globally for maximizing the input use efficiency of
agricultural input based on demands of plants, soil, and environment in a site specific way without
compromising with the yield. Precision agriculture requires transmission, storage and processing
of large amount of data i.e. individual reference point in the field, control variables, weather, time
and state data. The operation, care and maintenance of these machineries require a well skilled
labor and computing expert.

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2.3 The statement of problem

❖ The existing system which is manually working needs much human labor which will bring
extra and unwanted expenditure to the farmer of the plot land
❖ As the harvesting of the crop as well as the crop is done by using simple hand-used
machines and tools by the human labor it cannot bring the expected and the targeted
product
❖ Besides due to hand harvesting it takes too much time to harvest a piece of farm plot.
❖ The hand harvesting is carried out by persons, it will cause physical harm to them. Some
of the physical damage and harms caused to them includes i: e cutting and piercing of their
body while using sharp tools, getting bitten by insects and animals.

❖ Weeds are often defined as plants growing where they are unwanted. What makes these
plants so undesirable? What sort of problems can weed cause?
❖ Weeds and grain crops may be easy for a trained human eye to discriminate between, but
for a computer it is much more of a challenge.
❖ There are many variables that will affect the shape, color and spectral properties of a plant,
including its growth stage, the presence of disease, and water deficiency. Furthermore,
environmental factors like lighting, the presence of water droplets, and camera angle can
change the plant morphology as measured by the sensors and camera.
❖ The ESRI(Environmental Systems Research Institute) team, led by Professor Kamal
Alameh, needed to create a program that would be flexible enough to recognize weeds in
various conditions with a high level of accuracy, while processing the data quickly enough
to match the moving speed of a tractor, up to 25 kilometers per hour.

2.4 Proposed solution

❖ As the proposed system will replace the manual system into robotic, it will reduce even
eliminate the human need to harvest the farm land
❖ The robotic system is designed to perform the task in short period of time, therefore the
plot will be farmed in time. Therefore, there will not be a wastage of time.
❖ The system will automatically replace the system, indicating that there will not be any
human damage or injury

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❖ The system will bring exaggeratedly huge amount of profit in terms of high-quality
product, high ROI (return on investment) as the expected profit is going to be reached to
the goal maximally, the product will be delivered to the customers on time.
❖ In terms of stabilizing the economic inflation, as the proposed system will produce crops,
the farm plot will give crops at least 4 times a year, therefore the system will reduce the
economic inflation of food and food related crops, products and services.
❖ The ESRI team designed a system using neural networks and deep learning to distinguish
between crops and weeds, but needed a high-performance computing solution to realise
their vision.
❖ Just like a human brain, the neural networks require training, in order to calibrate the
‘weights’ of different filters, which the network uses like neurons in making the decision
on whether an image is a weed or not. “What each particular neuron does is not very
important,” said Dr Ahderom, “but when it has many different potential inputs, when it is
trained by looking at the images in hundreds of thousands of different scenarios, a
particular pattern emerges in the weight distribution in how each neuron should behave.”

2.5 CONCLUSION
The paper has presented that the requirements and progress made towards achieving a future
precision autonomous farming system. The assembly is developed for weed control system in
ploughed land automatically i.e. no man power required. The project has consists of two different
mechanism. The first mechanism contains making an assembly of vehicle and its motion, where
as second mechanism is cutting the weed in between to crop lines. The microcontroller is used to
control and monitoring the process of system motion of vehicle. It is controlled with help of DC
motor and servo motor. This system also detect obstacle present in path of the vehicle by infrared
sensor. It is also used for sensing turning position of vehicle at the end of land. Because of no man
power requirement and high speed of operation, it has scope for further expansion.

REFERENCES
1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339086261_Robotic_weed_control_using_automate
d_weed_and_crop_classification/link/5f6b547ca6fdcc008634d8fe/download
2. https://www.ijareeie.com/upload/2013/october/43Advanced.pdf
3. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/top-10-applications-of-robotics-in-2020/
4. https://www.agricultural-robotics.com/