International Conference on Electronics, Communication and Aerospace Technology

ICECA 2017

Multipurpose Autonomous Agricultural Robot

K Durga Sowjanya1, R Sindhu1, M Parijatham1, K Srikanth1, P Bhargav1
1
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering,
MLR Institute of Technology
Hyderabad, India
Email: k.durgasowjanya@gmail.com m.parijatham.reddy@gmail.com

Abstract—More than 40 percent of the population in the
world chooses agriculture as the primary occupation. In recent
years, increased interest has grown for the development of the
autonomous vehicles like robots in the agriculture. The existing
agricultural robot performs basic elementary functions like
harvesting, planting and spreading the pesticides. The Proposed
system aims at designing multipurpose autonomous agricultural
robotic vehicle which can be controlled through Bluetooth for
ploughing, seeding and irrigation systems. This is especially
important for the workers in the area of potentially harmful for
the safety and health of the workers. These robots are used to
reduce human intervention, ensuring proper irrigation and
efficient utilization of resources. These robots are mainly useful
in automated weed control; usage of fertilizers based on soil
condition, soil sensors for drip irrigation in rain feed areas.
Keywords—Agribot; Harvesting; Ploughing; Bluetooth;
Irrigation; Soil sensors.
I. INTRODUCTION
The main motive for developing Agricultural Automation
Technology is decreasing labor force, a phenomenon common
in the developed world. The reasons are the need for improved
food quality. Robotics and artificial intelligence achievements
offer solutions in precision agriculture to processes related to
seeding, harvesting, weed control, grove supervision, chemical
applications, etc. to improve productivity and efficiency [1].
The applications of instrumental robotics are spreading every
day to cover further domains, as the opportunity of replacing
human operators provides effective solutions with return on
investment. When more conservative issues are granted by
robotics, heavy chemicals or drugs dispensers, manure or
fertilizers spreaders, etc. are activities more and more
concerned by the deployment of unmanned options. All kinds
of agricultural robots have been researched and developed to
implement a number of agricultural products in many
countries. This Agribot can performs basic elementary
functions like harvesting, planting and spray the pesticides. The
application of agricultural machinery in precision agriculture
has experienced an increase in investment and research due to
the use of robotics applications in the machinery design and
task executions [2]. Precision autonomous farming is the
operation, guidance, and control of autonomous machines to
carry out agricultural tasks. It motivates agricultural robotics.
The goal of agricultural robotics is more than just the
application of robotics technologies to agriculture [3].
The multipurpose agricultural robots are designed to
perform the basic functions required to be carried out in farms.
These robots are used for agricultural operations perform
autonomously such as ploughing, seed sowing, mud closing
and water spraying [4]. The objectives of the proposed system
are to dig the soil depending on moisture level in the soil, to
plough the seeds with teeth’s like structure at the end to turn
the top layer of soil down, to close the seeds and level the
ground automatically and to provide irrigation system by
spraying water with a pump in the field.
II. LITERATURE SURVEY
The robotics fields are gradually increasing its productivity
in agriculture field. Some of the major problems in the Indian
agricultural are rising of input costs, accessibility of skilled
labors, lack of water resources and crop monitoring. To
overcome these problems, the automation technologies with
robots were used in agriculture. The automation in the
agriculture could help farmers to reduce their efforts [2].
The robot which performs operation like soil, moisture
testing, seeding, spraying pesticides, removes compost from
the field, which also performs obstacles avoidance operation
and metal detection in the path [2]. The robot is controlled
using cell phone using DTMF technique. Because of using
DTMF technique it overcomes the range or distance problem
of using Bluetooth or RF module which having limited
working range [7]. Agribot integrated system which uses Wi-Fi
to communicate between two robots which perform activities
like seeding, weeding, spraying of fertilizers and insecticides. It
is controlled using Arduino Atmega2560 controller and
powerful Raspberry pi minicomputer to control and monitor
working of robot. It has hexapod body which can move in any
direction as per required. It has ultrasonic proximity sensor to
avoid the obstacles in the path, and underbody sensor system to
detect that seed is planted or not. It can dig a hole in soil plant
seed in it and cover the hole again with soil and necessary pre
emergence fertilizers applies on it, and move on along with
communicating with other robot near to it using Wi-Fi [8].
Command based self-guided digging and seed sowing rover, a
sensor guided rover for digging, precise seed positioning and
sowing has been proposed to reduce the human effort and also
to increase the yield. The rover’s navigation is performed by
remote guiding devices fortified with the positioning system. It
uses arduino Atmega2560 controller and ultrasonic radar
sensor for obstacle avoidance. It is controlled using wireless
module that can be control by PC/ TAB/ Mobile. It gives
acknowledgement massage of seed tank empty or full to the
farmer [5]. The agribot which perform only two operations
like digging hole in field that is ploughing in the field and then

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planting a seed at a regular interval and cover the plough area
with soil. To drop the seed stepper motor is used and to dig a
hole, spike wheel is used [6].
Motivation for the research is to decrease harvesting cost
and increase the productivity. Conventional harvesting method
is highly labor intensive and inefficient in terms of both
economy and time. Machine harvesting systems by robot are a
partial solution to overcome these issues by removing fruits
from the trees efficiently. Thus reduce the harvesting cost to
about 35-45% of total production cost. An Agribot is designed
to reduce harvesting cost [8].
III. PROPOSED SYSTEM
The proposed system focused on the design, development
and the fabrication of the multipurpose agricultural robot with
irrigation system in addition to ploughing and seeding. The
multipurpose agricultural Robot is used to control the three
functions like digging the soil, seed sowing, and level the
ground to close the mud and water spraying with least changes
in accessories through Bluetooth without affecting cost. The
block diagram of the proposed model is shown in Figure 1.
Fig. 1. Block diagram of Multipurpose Agricultural robot
A. Hardware Model
The whole system of the robot works with the battery. The
robot requires 12V battery to operate the system. The base
frame consists of 4 wheels connected to four arms and the rear
wheel is driven by dc motor. One end of the frame, cultivator
is driven by dc motor which is made to dig the soil. The seeds
are spreaded through drilled hole on the shaft by the linked
mechanism with dug soil processing. A leveler is made to
close the seeds and water pump sprayer is used for spray the
water. Bluetooth technology through smart phone is used to
control the entire operation of robot for ploughing, seeding
and irrigation systems.
The Heart of the proposed system is Microcontroller.
Bluetooth module, DC motors, relays are interfaced to the
Microcontroller to provide various operations like Ploughing,
seeding, leveling and water spraying. The entire mechanism of
the system is controlled by Bluetooth module from Android
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ICECA 2017
smart phone. The wireless communication of Bluetooth
technology enables the robot to move in four directions as
front, back, right and left. Various commands can be used to
move robot into forward, reverse, stop, left, and right. The
microcontroller in the proposed model enables various
functions in the field according to the commands received
from smart phone.
(a)
(b)
Fig. 2. (a) Front view and (b) Top view of Prototype models for ploughing,
leveling, seeding and water spraying operations
The front view and top view of prototype model is shown in
figure 2 (a) and (b) above. The functionality of the prototype
model has been controlled with the help of relay switch to
power up robot through 12V battery.
The various operations of the prototype model is demonstrated
below
• Ploughing function
The primary purpose of ploughing is to turn over the upper
layer of the soil, bringing fresh nutrients to the surface, while
burying weeds and the remains of previous crops and allowing
them to break down. In the prototype model shown above, a
DC Motor coupled with the screw rod is used for ploughing
the farm. As the screw rod rotates, the nut welded to the
cultivator slides between the screws of the rod. Then the
cultivator is lowered down and the soil is dug up to 1.5 inches.
The direction of the cultivator can be controlled by the
Bluetooth app in the smart phone.
• Seed sowing function
Seeding is planting seeds in a place or on an object. In the
prototype model shown above, a box is used for Seed storage
and is arranged to sow the seeds when wheels are rotated. The
movement of wheels of the robot causes the shaft to throw the
seeds to the field.
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• Mud closing and leveling function

Leveling means give a flat and even surface to the field. In the
prototype model shown above, motor drivers are used to
perform leveling and mud closing functions. The mud is
closed in the sowed soil and the sliding mechanism is used for
leveling.

• Irrigation function
Irrigation is the method in which a controlled amount of water
is supplied to plants at regular intervals for agriculture. In the
prototype model shown above, drivers are used for water
pump to spray the water in the field.

B. Software Model
Bluetooth module is operated through blue tooth app. The
Bluetooth module can be enabled through scan button. First
make sure that the module is paired to smart phone. Once the
connection is established then the application will show
connected status as shown in figure 3 below. The nine
commands are stored using set keys option for as F (forward),
B (backward), L (leveling), P (ploughing), S (Seeding), W
(watering), 1 ( to stop Ploughing and Seeding), 2 (to stop
Levelling and Watering) and 3( to stop all the functions of the
robot). According to the applied commands and program Fig. 4. Flowchart for the proposed model
loaded to microcontroller the robot will move and performs
above functions. developed in 2 phases, hardware and software. The hardware
design resulted in interfacing Bluetooth module, DC motors,
Ploughing system, leveling system, irrigation system and
seeding to microcontroller through motor drivers. The
software part includes developing and testing with the support
of Bluetooth APP for movement of wheels, ploughing,
seeding, leveling and water spraying functions. The C
program is developed for microcontroller to control the above
operations.

A. Analysis of the parameters for ploughing, seeding, leveling

and water spraying is shown in tables1 to 4 below
Fig. 3. Application window for Bluetooth controlled robot
TABLE I. PLOUGHING FUNCTION

IV. METHODOLOGY S.NO PARAMETER Values obtained

by proposed
AT89S52 microcontroller is used to control various operations model
of proposed system. Port2 and port1 of AT89S52 1 Torque of the motor 4 kg-cm
microcontroller are used to control ploughing, seeding, 2 Speed of the motor 10 RPM
3 Distance covered by the model 11.4m
leveling and water spraying through motor drivers of robot. 4 Time taken by the proposed model 1 min
Ploughing motors are connected to output pins (3 &6),
Leveling motors are connected to output pins (11 &14) of TABLE II. SEED SOWING FUNCTION
motor driver L293D. L293 D is the motor driver for
S.NO PARAMETER Values obtained by
controlling DC motor operations for ploughing and leveling. proposed model
DC Motor used for wheels is connected to another L293D 1 Torque of the motor 4 kg-cm
driver for proper movement of wheels. Similarly for seeding 2 Speed of the motor 10 RPM
and water spraying functions, other L293D motor drivers are 3 Area covered by the model 5.2mx5.2m
used. The flow chart for the proposed model is shown in 4 Number of seeds sowed for minute 30
figure 4. 4 Time taken by the proposed model 1 min

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TABLE III. MUD CLOSING AND LEVELING FUNCTION soil condition, soil sensors for drip irrigation in rain feed areas.
S.NO PARAMETER Values obtained by The proposed system is mainly used for crop establishment,
proposed model plant care and selective harvesting. In future, It can be
1 Torque of the motor 4 kg-cm extended by using ultrasonic sensors and cameras for
2 Speed of the motor 10 RPM
performing the same operations without human operator for
3 Distance covered by the model 11.4m
4 Time taken by the proposed 1 min measuring the various parameters like soil condition, area
model covered by the robot and weight of the material for leveling.
5 Maximum weight for leveling 150g
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
TABLE IV. IRRIGATION FUNCTION
The authors would like to thank the management of MLR
S.NO PARAMETER Values obtained Institute of Technology for their encouragement.
by proposed model
1 Torque of the motor 4 kg-cm
2 Speed of the motor 10 RPM REFERENCES
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