AUTONOMOUS SOLAR-POWERED MINI RICE TRANSPLANTER ROBOT FOR

AGRICULTURAL PLANTING

In Partial Fulfilment of the

Requirements to the

Subject Creative Technology 10

Travis Christoff Adams

James Patrick Mosende

Rhealene Amaya

Althea Mae Bernaldo

Tiffany Zea Soledad

Deborah Joyce Sumaylo

March 2023
 INTRODUCTION

Rationale

When it comes to how people interact with the environment, agriculture marks a

significant shift. Farmers today confront numerous issues, including an aging workforce, a

scarcity of low-cost labor, environmental dangers, and climate change. For every agricultural

issue, autonomous and semi-autonomous robots were created to solve it.

In agricultural planting, robots have numerous advantages and applications,

including improved fresh produce quality and lower production costs. Agricultural robots are

used for agricultural purposes. Automation of manual processes reduces manufacturing costs

and eliminates physical labor, particularly on rice plantations. One of the most important

agricultural robots is the rice transplanter robot, which is what all farmers need, especially

during the rice planting stage, to minimize the amount of time they spend planting rice with

their hands and while bending over.

Rice planting is one of the most important yet time-consuming tasks for our farmers.

With the help of our autonomous solar-powered mini rice transplanter robot, this robot can

work with more accuracy, faster, and for longer periods of time than humans, reducing the

amount of time that farmers spend planting rice with their hands and while bending over. Our

autonomous solar-powered mini rice transplanter robot, which would bring technology into

farming, is one of the many remarkable pieces of machinery that would awe and amaze in

this era of the fourth high-tech agricultural revolution.

Significance

The researchers will present an evocative concept with their proposed Autonomous solar-

powered mini transplanter robot for agricultural planting and transplanting of seeds. In which

can give benefits to the farmers who are struggling in transplanting their crops manually. It

can greatly reduce time in transplanting crops that transplanting crops manually. With a built-

in seedling tray, transplanting arms, grasping forks, and seedling tray shifter. The machine

will be able to automatically transplant seedlings into a field. This study will give the facts,

details, and information on the different parts of the topic including the methods, diagrams,

and the robot’s advantages, and to present its impact on the fields of agriculture. Furthermore,

the product may add to the following:

 Farmers. They can benefit to this product since it will make their work fast and

efficient, less labor and ensures timely planting.

 Researchers. They will gain new information, knowledge & experience to

improve their skills.

 Manufacturer. They can benefit for further studies and investigations in its quality

product in order to construct and designed a product in a friendly price.

Scientific Basis

Robots by definition, are automatically operated machines that replaces human

effort. And in using robots in agriculture, they can help relieve the farm labour or labour costs

of the farmers. Agricultural robots can come in different shapes and sizes and perform

different tasks altogether. Some examples are aerial drones that can inspect crops from the air

and produce valuable insights into crop health and soil conditions, or weeding robots that run

on solar power and eliminate the weeds that have been disrupting the growth of the plants.
 Agricultural robots also help in precision agriculture. According to (Goldman

Sachs) 40 percent of crops were lost because of over-fertilization, and 15 to 20 percent yield

loss due to inadequate fertilizer application. Agricultural robots with the use of AI intersercts

what is now called "precision agriculture". It aims to reduce inputs such as fertilizers,

pesticides all while increasing yields.

Precisicion agricultural robots not only combat the problems of weeding but also

perform the complex processes of precision agriculture to improve crop yield to a large extent

(Bose 2020).

Farm labour is a daunting task for farmers especially since the average age of

farmers in the Philippines is already 57, according to the Department of Agriculture -

Agricultural Training Institude (DA-ATI) in 2013. Agricultural Robots can relieve farmers of

labour by making the robots do their respective tasks. Which in turn can give farmers more

time to manage and sort all of their finances.

According to estimates compiled by the Food and Agriculture Organization, by

2050 we will need to produce 60 per cent more food to feed a world population of 9.3 billion

which is the expected population in the future.

The agriculture industry focuses on cultivating plants, land and animals to make

foods, drinks and other products. And as technology advances, this industry will continue to

modernize and allow farmers to safely and efficiently grow more plants.
 Conceptual Framework

INPUT
INPUT PROCESS OUTPUT

Benefit of the proposed

robot to agricultural Procedural
understanding and Autonomous robot
economics, allocation,
Circuiting, solar with other features
distribution, and
resource, and coding of programmed to
utilization of resource
robot. perform specific
used to produced farming
tasks in farming.

Impact and effect of Knowing the materials

robotics engineering to to be used.
the agricultural situation.
Effective and
Sufficient of robot
Efficiency and
Sufficient increasing, Planning of work and increased efficiency
reducing costs, and assembling of robot. and productivity of
promoting sustainability farming operations
eco- friendly alternative lead to greater food
to traditional farming security.
practices.

Figure 1. Conceptual Framework

This innovative solution can significantly reduce the time and cost associated with

manual labor in agricultural settings, while also providing an eco-friendly alternative to

traditional farming practices. By utilizing renewable energy sources and autonomous

technology, this mini transplanter robot has the potential to revolutionize the way we
approach

agriculture, making it more efficient, sustainable and profitable for farmers.

 In addition, the robot can be programmed to perform specific tasks such as planting

seeds, removing weeds or harvesting crops, which could greatly reduce the need for human

labor and increase productivity in farming operations. Furthermore, the autonomous and

solar-powered nature of this mini excavator robot also ensures that it is environmentally

sustainable and reduces the carbon footprint associated with traditional farming practices.

The chart presented of the conceptual framework shows the objective and target of

the study, and is divided into three parts which are the input, process, and output.

For the input of the project, it is hoped to benefit proposed improved fresh produce

quality and lower production costs. It must have a great impact and effect of robotics and

engineering to the agricultural situation. And lastly, it is anticipated to be effective and

sufficient increasing, reducing costs, and promoting sustainability eco- friendly

alternative to traditional farming practices.

The process will elaborate on the procedures used in this study, from the materials

being using to the connecting of circuits, solar resource, coding and assembling of the final

output. And with that, it is expected that the output or the end product is potent and for

extending helping hand for the farmers. The possibilities of this technology are promising,

and it will be interesting to see how it develops and is implemented in the agricultural

industry in the coming years, and how it may contribute to addressing some of the challenges

facing farmers and the agricultural sector as a whole.

Theoretical Framework

Transplanting manually, the labor cost is high. Seedlings are exposed to

possible injury during handling. Plants tend to grow more slowly than direct seeding because

of recovery time after transplanting, Harvesting is delayed.

Most of the Rice in world is being cultivated with traditional (manual) seedling

transplanting method. This method however, is quite expensive and requires lot of labor for

uprooting of seedlings and their transplanting. Labor scarcity is the one of the major

problems of rice cultivation in south Asia which results in delay in transplanting of rice

nursery.

Modern agriculture has to cope with several challenges, including the increasing

call for food, as a consequence of the global explosion of earth’s population, climate change,

natural resources depletion, alteration of dietary choices, as well as safety and health

concerns. As a means of addressing the above issues, placing pressure on the agricultural

sector, there exists an urgent necessity for optimizing the effectiveness of agricultural

practices by, simultaneously, lessening the environmental burden. In particular, these two

essentials have driven the transformation of agriculture into precision agriculture. This

modernization of farming has a great potential to assure sustainability, maximal productivity,

and a safe environment.

Due to the high labor cost, the shortage of rural labor force, and the poor

straightness accuracy of the seedling row, unmanned transplanters have gradually become a

significantly sought-after in promoting the mechanized transplanting of rice. The path

tracking control performance is the key to determining the straightness of transplanting

(Jinyang Li,2022).
 In this present work, we have discussed about the application of automation and

robotics in the various stages of the agriculture industries like irrigation of horticulture land,

parks, gardens, and golf courses efficiently and reduce the wastage of water. The uses of

automation and smart systems also help in food safety by the selection of appropriate

chemicals. The application of multitasking robots is also useful to make it fast and maintain

quality. In the smart farming also helps to maintain the humidity, temperature and irrigation

process by using the sensors and apps. The aim of this study to identify the opportunities and

scope for future automation and the Internet of Things (IoT) in the field of agriculture

industries (P Dhanush,2002).

Objectives

The general objectives of the study are to design and develop an Autonomous Solar-Powered

Rice Transplanter Robot for Farmers to reduce their physical contact from the heat of the Sun

and to transplant the rice seeds to the field easier and more efficient.

1. To design and develop an autonomous rice transplanter robot using solar energy.

2. To implement autonomous solar-powered rice transplanter robot in agricultural field.

3. To assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the autonomous solar-powered rice

transplanter robot.

4. To measure the usability, functionality, maintainability, and efficiency of the

autonomous solar-powered rice transplanter robot.

References

https://www.gspublishing.com/content/research/en/reports/2016/07/13/6e4fa167-c7ad-4faf-

81de-bfc6acf6c81f.pdf

https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/11/3758

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.0604600103

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/8/1225

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/748/1/012002/meta