Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Table of Contents i
List of Figures & Tables ii
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION 01
CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW 02
CHAPTER 3
AGRICULTURAL ROBOTICS
3.1 WHAT IS AGRICULTURAL ROBOTICS 05
3.2 WHERE IS AN AGRICULTURAL ROBOT USED 06
3.3 DIFFERENT TYPES OF AGRICULTURAL ROBOTS 07
3.4 DEMETER 09
3.5 WEED CONTROLLER 10
3.6 FORESTER ROBOT 11
3.7 FRUIT PICKING ROBOT 12
CHAPTER 4
METHODOLOGY 13
4.1 TRANSPLANTING 13
4.2 INTERCULTURE 13
4.3 SPRAYING 14
4.4 HARVESTING 14
CHAPTER 5
LIMITATION IN USE OF ROBOTS 15
5.1 AERIAL ROBOTS OR DRONES 15
5.2 LIMITATION IN USE OF ROBATICS 16
5.3 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES 18
i
CHAPTER 6
CONCLUSION 19
References 20
ii
LIST OF FIGURES & TABLES
FIGURES
ii
i
APPLICATION OF ROBOTICS IN CHANGING THE FUTURE OF AGRICULTURE
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Agriculture is the backbone of our country and we need food for our survival.
Conventional agricultural equipment and practices require large number of labour. The
agriculture sector should focus on all possible directions including current agricultural
practices and technology as well as modern equipment like agricultural robots so that
proper care will be taken for sustainable agricultural production without compromising
safety of farmers and agricultural labour. The application of robotics in agricultural
operations is being attempted for transplanting, weeding, spraying, harvesting, etc. Many
agri-robots have been developed in developed countries whereas research has initiated in
some developing countries like India. A few researchers have carried out research in crop
mapping, identification of fruits and disease using vision-based systems. Drones (UAV)
have been extensively used for crop health monitoring and for spraying operation. Table 1
gives a brief summary of research attempts carried out on application of robotics in the
agriculture sector. Though, most of the developed technologies are in proto-type stage,
which needs prime concern for its research and development to bring these technologies
at farmers’ field in order to achieve sustainable agricultural production with minimal
manpower. Since limited work has been done on robotics application in agriculture and
only a few successful technologies have been developed, this article emphasizes on the
available robotic systems for various farm operations either in the field crop or
horticulture.
CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Tom Duckett, Simon Pearson, Simon Blackmore, Bruce Grieve [2] Agri-Food is the
largest manufacturing sector in the UK. It supports a food chain that generates over
£108bn p.a., with 3.9m employees in a truly international industry and exports £20bn of
UK manufactured goods. However, the global food chain is under pressure from
Mohd Saiful Azimi Mahmud, Mohamad Shukri Zainal Abidin, Abioye Abiodun
Emmanuel, Hameedah Sahib Hasan [3] Agriculture is the backbone of society as it
mainly functions to provide food, feed and fiber on which all human depends to live.
Precision agriculture is implemented with a goal to apply sufficient treatments at the right
place in the right time with the purpose to provide low-input, high efficiency and
sustainable agricultural production. In precision agriculture, automation and robotics have
become one of the main frameworks which focusing on minimizing environmental
impact and simultaneously maximizing agricultural produce. The application of
automation and robotics in precision agriculture is essentially implemented for precise
farm management by using modern technologies. In the past decades, a significant
amount of research has focused on the applications of mobile robot for agricultural
operations such as planting, inspection, spraying and harvesting. This paper reviews the
recent applications of automation and robotics in agriculture in the past five years. In this
agriculture. The paper concludes with tabular data and charts comparing the frequency of
individual AI approaches for specific applications in the agriculture field.
Shavon McGlynn, Drew Walters [5] From the era of stone-age, humans have managed to
hunt and gather the food for their survival. Since historic times, humans have been using
their brains to fulfill the necessity of food. From that time to 21st century human beings
have been using their intelligence for their survival. Over the period of time
methodologies of cultivating food have improved to such extent that nowadays robots are
being used for farming purposes. Robots have simplified the job of farmers to a great
extent. They have helped farmers in undertaking smart farming. Due to globalization the
import and export of food have reached to a pinnacle where farmers are getting a good
price returns on their crops. Due to this factor there has been increase in competition in
agriculture sector. Farmers are shifting their gears towards robotic farming from the
traditional farming. These things have resulted in advances in computer technology,
advances in forecasting, automatic watering system etc. There has been rapid decrease in
cost of new technology due to which robotic farming is becoming cheaper and effective
day by day. Agro-bots (Agriculture robots) can be equipped with latest technologies such
as computer-based sensors and actuators such as global positioning systems, machine
vision and laser-based sensors. These technologies can be progressively incorporated into
mobile robots with the aim of configuring autonomous farming. This paper will discuss
about the introduction of robotics into agriculture field, its history, current trends, future
trends and their impacts on society
CHAPTER 3
AGRICULTURAL ROBOTICS
The main features of these robots are no fumes, no oil leaks, and no pollution and
whisper quiet operation. Fruit picking robots are useful for harvesting of crops. These
robots are using video image capturing technique to distinguish leaves from fruits. In the
last decade, there is a significant development in Agricultural robots. Researches are still
carrying out in designing these robots more efficient for better agriculture.
Agribots help to automate routine farming activities because of which repetitive tasks
are completed in no time at all. These robots assist in performing several farm functions,
some of which include:
weeds. Industry-standard blades and finger weeders run along the base, pulling out
unwanted weeds, thereby reducing the need for herbicides. The leading manufacturers of
weeding robots globally include Naio Technologies (France) and Nexus Robotics (Nova
Scotia).
Drones are increasingly gaining relevance in precision farming. They are self-
charging, sophisticated pieces of machinery that use computer vision and data science to
gather and process data relating to crop stress. Moreover, they help farmers identify areas
of improvement. The leading manufacturers of aerial imaging and seed planting drones
worldwide include American Robotics, UAV Systems International (US companies) and
Taranis (Israel).
3.4 Demeter
Demeter Demeter has cameras on it that can detect the difference between the crop that
has been cut and crop that hasn’t. The Demeter robot can also be driven by remote control.
Forester robot This is a special type of robot used for cutting up of wood, tending trees,
and pruning of X- mass tree and for harvesting pulp and hard wood and in the forests. A
fearless mobile robot is helping scientists to monitor environmental changes in forests.
The hi-tech Tarzan of the robot world, nicknamed Treebot , is the first of its kind to
combine networked sensors, a web cam, and a wireless net link.
Fruit picking robot The fruit picking robots are used to pick ripe fruit without damaging
the branches or leaves of the tree. The robot can distinguish between fruit and leaves by
using video image capturing. The camera is mounted on the robot arm, and the colours
detected are compared with properties stored in memory.
CHAPTER 3
METHODOLOGY
4.1 Transplanting
Manual vegetable transplanting of plug seedlings is the most time intensive and
laborious work (Khadatkar etal., 2018). Robotic transplanter may be a solution for the
operation it not only saves time but also requires less labour. The robotic transplanters use
computer graphics or machine vision system for simulating transplanting operation. They
consist of a robotic arm for seedling pick-up, a path manipulator and an end-effector. An
intelligent transplanting system consists of 5 bar picking mechanism with fixed gear train,
the seedling tray conveying mechanism, the planting mechanism, the seedling detection
system using PLC. The PLC is used to control transmission and detect the void cell of
seedling tray. By using robotic transplanter for transplanting seedlings of vegetables and
crops, it will assure precision with safe and comfortable operation.
4.2 Interculture
Intercultural operation such as weeding is done to kill the weeds by mechanical
weeders or chemical spraying. Manual hand weeding in field crop is considered as the
most drudgerious farm operation and demands huge manual labour. Weeding by
herbicides not only involves high input costs but also degrade the environment and hence
the overall productivity. Robotic weeding may offer a potential alternative for
conventional weeding practices using hand tools. Also, due to the strict protocols and
restriction on the use of herbicides, robotic weeding offers the best alternative to manual
weeding. Robotic weeder uses vision-based systems for weed detection, guiding weeder
and uprooting weeds mechanically developed by US National Science Foundation can
work as human partner as a co-worker to perform a task jointly with ease developed a
robotic patch spraying system for precision application of herbicide.
4.3 Spraying
4.4 Harvesting
Fruit selection as well as detachment is one of the essential tasks for efficient
harvesting. Most of the robotic harvester have been developed for fruits like apple, citrus
cherries, strawberries, etc.. However, some harvesters for crops grown in greenhouse
such as tomatoes, capsicum, etc. were also developed. The harvesting of fruits is
accomplished by grasping the fruit with grippers and then detaching it on the basis of
shape, size, colour and texture.
CHAPTER 5
Aerial robot universally known as drone or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is the
new way to perform agricultural operations viz. crop mapping, scouting, spraying, etc
during shortage of labour and precise management of agricultural inputs viz.
chemicals, fertilizer, etc. UAVs, drones and radio-controlled model aircraft can
be flown at lower altitudes to increase spatial resolution possibly at lower cost. The
advantage of UAV platform for agricultural management over conventional satellite
imagery are very high pixels resolution, independent of cloud cover factors during critical
periods of growth and instant information communication. Images acquired from UAV are
used for determining utilization of shrub in vineyard management, mapping grass species,
measuring shrub biomass, mapping crop vigour .Apart from these, vegetation mapping of
rangeland , patches of weed detection , crop water stress monitoring, crop biomass
recording, and evaluating nitrogen treatments on crops are the other uses. UAV can also
be used as geo- fencing to fend off animals’ attacks by alerting the owner. Thakur (2016)
reported reduction in cost of production by 25-30% by early detection of pest and
efficient spraying by using drones in Chhattisgarh state of India. The aerial robot based
spraying system enables farmers to apply protectants in time and safely.
The viability of agrobots for a wide range of agricultural applications has been evaluated
extensively but the commercial applications of robots in field conditions are yet to be
available. field applications of robotics are still in the nascent stage due to some of the
limitations as mentioned below.
The use of robots for agricultural operation seems to be impracticable at first instance, but
its use has become crucial to provide food security for the burgeoning population of the
world and to address the issue of labour shortage in agriculture. Due to migration of
labour from agriculture to other sectors, there is shortage of labour and increase in
demand for food day by day. The robotic machinery have potential for adoption for
repetitive farm operations such as
transplanting, weeding and harvesting which demand huge labour. It also offers
additional advantages to overcome limited or non-availability of labours for transplanting,
weeding, spraying and harvesting of fruits and vegetables. Research also shown that
drones can be used to assess the spatial and temporal management of field crop which can
be utilized for better crop planning and monitoring at large scale. While data oriented
digital solutions are available in the form of mobile app, the adoption of robotic
technology is at a nascent phase. Some technologies viz. driverless tractors, laser land
levelers, and harvesters for strawberries, tomatoes, capsicum in greenhouse are being
developed, but the major constraints are in the adoption as well as commercialization of
such high-end technologies. It may be due to climatic as well as geographical conditions,
high cost, less efficient, need of skilled operator, etc. However, some robotics
applications are now commercially available for fruit harvesters, sprayers and
autonomous combines or tractors. These technologies need to be tested, improved,
popularized and adopted on mass scale to address labour shortage in future. The process
for implementing these autonomous robots highlights the need to have collaborative
human-robot systems. Hence, multi-stakeholder initiative might speed up the adoption of
robots in the agricultural sector.
ADVANTAGES
The Robo does not get sick or tired and does not need time off.
It can operate with closer tolerances (so every round is at full field capacity), Fewer
errors and at higher speeds because machines can be made lighter and cheaper if the
driver’s seat, controls and cab can be eliminated.
It can be used in various fields like agriculture, medicine, mining, and space research .
It can be sent to another planet to study their environmental conditions.
The machines could easily work around trees, rocks, ponds and other obstacles.
Small suburban fields could be worked almost as efficiently as large tracts of land.
DISADVANTAGES
CHAPTER 4
CONCLUSION
One of the advantages of the smaller machines is that they may be more acceptable
to the non-farm community. The jobs in agriculture are a drag, dangerous, require
intelligence and quick, though highly repetitive decisions hence robots can be rightly
substituted with human operator. The higher quality products can be sensed by machines
(colour, firmness, weight, density, ripeness, size, shape) accurately. Robots can improve
the quality of our lives but there are downsides.
REFERENCES
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Simon; Blackmore, Simon; Grieve, Bruce; Smith, Melvyn
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Saiful Azimi Mahmud, Mohamad Shukri Zainal Abidin, Abioye Abiodun Emmanuel,
Hameedah Sahib Hasan, ARQII publications
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