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VISVESVARAYA TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY BELGAUM
First Evaluation Report
On
AGROBOT-ROBOT IN AGRICULTURE
Submitted byBATCH NO: 16
NAME: USN NO. :
1. NAVYA. H.N. 4GH08ME038
2. MUNAHID PASHA 4GH07ME406
3. ZABI ULLA KHAN 4GH07ME055
4. KOTRESH. A.B. 4GH08ME026
Under the Guidance of
Dr. MANJUNATH.K
DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
GOVERNMENT ENGINEERING COLLEGE HASSAN 573201
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION....3
2. THE CURRENT STATE OF AGRICULTURAL ROBOTICS...4
2.1. Robots in Agriculture.......................4
2.1.1 Autonomous Lawnmowers
2.1.2 Fruit Picking Robot
2.1.3 Eye Sonic Robot
2.1.4 Field robot "Eye-Maize"
2.1.5 Mushroom Picking Robot
2.1.6 The Oracle Robot
2.1.7 Precision Guidance Systems
3. PROBLEM DEFINATION..6
4. LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................7
5. OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT......9
6. METHODOLOGY......10
6.1. Block Diagram of Agrobot..11
7. REFERENCES... ....12
8. WORK DONE SO FAR...13
9. WORK TO BE CARRIED OUT.13
1. INTRODUCTION
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Agriculture comes from two Latin words: ager which means a field culturia which
means cultivation, the tillage of the soil. The word robot came from the Czech word
robota, which means forced labor, or work & the term robot was first coined by Karel
Capek.
Robot is "A re-programmable, multifunctional mechanical manipulator designed to
move material, parts, tools, or specialized devices through various programmedmotions for the performance of a variety of tasks [2].
The idea of robotic agriculture is not a new one. Many engineers have developed
driverless tractors in the past but they have not been successful as they did not have
the ability to embrace the complexity of the real world. Most of them assumed an
industrial style of farming where everything was known before hand and the machines
could work entirely in predefined ways much like a production line.
The approach is now to develop smarter machines that are intelligent enough to work
in an unmodified or semi natural environment. These machines do not have to beintelligent in the way we see people as intelligent but must exhibit sensible behavior in
recognized contexts. In this way they should have enough intelligence embedded
within them to behave sensibly for long periods of time, unattended, in a semi-natural
environment, whilst carrying out a useful task.
The approach of treating crop and soil selectively according to their needs by small
autonomous machines is the natural next step in the development of Precision
Farming (PF) as it reduces the field scale right down to the individual plant. One simple
definition of PF is doing the right thing in the right place at the right time with the right
amount.
Most of the current machinery is very weather dependant. Tractors cannot drive on
soil when it is wet, sprayers cannot work in high winds etc. Perhaps it will be possible
to develop smaller, less intrusive machinery that can allow more tasks to be carried
out in marginal conditions as shown in figure 1.
.. The Current State of Current State of A
Fig 1 Agrobot
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2. THE CURRENT STATE OF AGRICULTURAL ROBOTICS
Today agricultural robots can be classified into several groups: harvesting or picking,
planting, weeding, pest control, or maintenance. Scientists have the goal of creating
robot farms where all of the work will be done by machines. The main obstacle to this
kind of robot farm is that farms are a part of nature and nature is not uniform. It is not
like the robots that work in factories building cars. Factories are built around the job at
hand, whereas, farms are not. Robots on farms have to operate in harmony with nature.
Robots in factories dont have to deal with uneven terrain or changing conditions.
Scientists are working on overcoming these problems.
2.1. ROBOTS IN AGRICULTURE
2.1.1 Autonomous Lawnmowers
The scientists and engineers at the National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC) at
Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute have developed a mobile robotic mower
that can autonomously move a golf course as shown in figure 2 & 3 [Blackmore et
al.2002]. It can do this safely and precisely and can reliably avoid obstacles as small as a
golf ball. Golf courses require constant maintenance and human labor for this purpose
is expensive. The idea was to replace this human labor. It can be operated at night and
during other off-peak hours and with minimum of human supervision. This robot can
move the entire fairway efficiently and with centimeter level precision to create the
cross-hatch patterns seen on premier golf courses.
Fig 2 Autonomous mower in action Fig 3 System under trees
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2.1.2 Fruit Picking Robot
Another robot is the fruit picking robot, which must be able to reach all levels of a tree
and be able to pick fruit without damaging it. The robot must have good sensory
awareness touch, sight, and image processing, and able to distinguish between
certain fruits (plums: softer; oranges: harder rind). The robot uses a camera to tell the
difference between fruit and leaves and has an air blower to blow leaves out of the
way as shown in figure 4.
.
Fig 4 Fruit Picking Robot
2.1.3 Eye Sonic Robot
The winner for the year 2009 was a robot named Eye Sonic developed at the
Wagenengen University, in cooperation with a host of industries. This robot navigates
through maize rows with help of a Sick Laser scanner as shown in figure 5. A compass
is mounted on the robot to maintain course within the maize rows and on the
headland it is used to turn. It also has the capability of detecting green golf balls.
Fig 5 Eye Sonic robot
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2.1.4 Field robot "Eye-Maize"
The goal was to make a concept and to realize a low-cost robotic vehicle usingoptoelectronic sensors and a microcontroller-based platform. The vehicle is calledEye-Maize as shown in figure 6. At the Field Robot Event Eye-Maize successfully
drove between the straight and curved rows with reasonable speed. Moreover, the U-
turn worked well for dry soil. Problems occurred at the U-turn for wetted soil due to
slip. The integration of additional devices like acceleration sensors or an electronic
compass might solve this problem in the future.
Fig 6Eye-Maize field robot
2.1.5 Mushroom Picking Robot
Mushrooms are a very difficult crop to
grow. There is a lot of labor involved.
Many mushroom farms are becoming
extremely high tech. They use
computerized systems and monitor all
production phases & it is as shown infigure 7.
Fig 7 Mushroom Picking Robot (19)
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2.1.6 The Oracle Robot
In the case of the sheep shearing robot, productivity of sheep stations can be
increased also, with fully automated sheep shearing plants taking over from teams of
shearers as shown in figure 8. After all, robots do not get tired, and don t require
lodging, feeding or back pay! However, care must be taken to keep such systems
maintained regularly, as conditions on outback stations are inhospitable for such
precision machinery.
Fig 8 Oracle Robot
2.1.7 Precision Guidance Systems
Precision Guidance system refers to the activity of operating farm equipment (tractors,combines, etc) with the aid of a positioning system such as Global Positioning System
(GPS) as shown in figure 9. There are primarily two types of guidance systems: (I) a
farmer is actually the driving the tractor and he is aided with a sensor or suite of
sensors to maintain his driving pattern referred to as Manual Control/Light bar and
(ii) a farmer is primarily supervising the tractor in its auto-steer or hands-free
mode referred to as fully auto-mated Auto Control/Auto Steer system.
Fig 9 Visualization of seeding robots. (Blackmore et al. 2008)
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3. PROBLEM DEFINATION
Seed bed preparation by manually is very risk full. Most of the current machinery is very weather dependant. Tractors cannot
drive on soil when it is wet.
Manual agriculture depends on man power it may take longer process.
4. LITERATURE REVIEW
Tim Niemueller et al. [1] have developed a short introduction to the basics of robotics
in the context of artificial intelligence. It describes the very basics of robotics likesensors and effectors, gives an overview on robotic history, and introduces some basic
problems encountered in modern robotics. It describes possible solutions to those
problems without going deeply into theory.
Blackmore et al. [2] have presented a new method, described that can be used to
decompose human controlled agricultural operations into an autonomous tractor.
Four main levels of subsumption have been identified: Operation, Task, Optimization
and Primitive Actions where each level is subsumed by the level above. Tasks were
classified into two distinctive roles, deterministic tasks. The tasks and optimizations
can be further decomposed into primitive actions which in turn are converted into the
tractor directories.
Pedersen et al. [3] have developed an autonomous systems are more flexible than
conventional systems and may reduce labor costs and restrictions on the number of
daily working hours significantly. In addition, at this stage of development, the initial
investments and annual costs for expensive GPS systems are still relatively high but it
seems possible to design economically viable robotic systems for grass cutting, crop
scouting and autonomous weeding.
Simmon [4] has developed agricultural automation is a continual development. The
current research technologies give rise to the possibility of developing a completely
new mechanization system to support the cropping system based on small smart
machines. This system replaces blanket energy over application with intelligently
targeted inputs thus reducing the cost of the inputs while increasing the level of care.
This can improve the economics of crop production as well as having less
environmental impact.
Oksanen et al.[5] had found requirements for methods and automated machinesneeded in automated crop production. During the last few decades technology used in
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crop production has developed noticeably. The work of farmers has decreased and
continues decreasing by means of technology and automation.
Jinlin et al. [6] have presented the variable Field Of View (FOV) of camera to realize
headland turning of an agricultural robot in corn fields.
Ryosuke et al. [7] have developed the modified conversion of a commercial crawler-type tractor into a robot tractor that can be navigated autonomously by using RTK-GPS
and IMU as navigation sensors. In this the robot could successfully finish the single
straight line path & a multiline path.
Shrinivas and Zanwar [8] have developed the assembly is developed for cultivating
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 preparing a seed bed on ploughed land.
5. Objectives of the Project
Ploughing of the land. Seeding of crops. Soil lapping.
Seed bed preparation:
Ploughing is one of the most important primary cultivation processes and has beencarried out since the start of civilization. It is effectively the inversion or mixing of
topsoil to prepare a suitable seed bed. The seed require contact with soil moisture to
allow uptake of water and nutrients. It requires stability to hold the growing plant and
structured that allow the root to develop and shoots to grow.
Seed placement:
Rather than just record the position of each seed it would be better to be able to
control the seed position. This would allow not only allow the spatial variance of seed
density to be changed but also have the ability to alter the seeding pattern. The
technique of seed boring in ploughed land is in the form of row per column with fixed
standard distance depending upon type of crop or type of cultivation.
Soil lapping:
After seed placement the soil is to be overlapped with the help of v- shaped
arrangement.
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6. METHODOLOGY
The following are the steps involved in development of robot
Selection of motor- Dc motor-800RPM. Selection of drives- chain drive. Selection of materials- persorated mild steel plate. Selection of controller- Remote controle-HT-12D, HT-12E. Configuration- Cartesian coordinate. Microcontroller-PIC 16F 877. Power Source- Battery 12v, 10AH.
6.1. Block Diagram of Agrobot
The system uses so many automatic methods which really require very less man
power. The robot is made of tyre wheels with one freewheel to take immediate actions.
The ploughing and seeding mechanism is so arranged that the farmer can be
controlled from the RF remote control. To navigate the robot the camera is used which
rotates at angle of around 90 degrees. The system has been connected with wireless
technique to control the action. The data has to be sent through wireless so that to
choose the ASK (amplitude shift keying) method to send the binary data with RF
environment. The data has to be sent in the form of binary is then encoded with encoder
with the help of a key pad as shown in figure 12. The keys may be assigned separately
for every function like movement of the vehicle, rotation of the motor for ploughing,
trigger action for seeding etc. The data for every action will be encoded as 0001, 0010
0011, etc each data has got its own meaning. Finally the encoded data has been sent
through a RF technique using transmitter which is tuned at 433MHZ. The RF waves
radiated in the atmosphere through the RF antenna.
When the RF waves are interact with receiving antenna the demodulation will takes
place and the logical data are available but the data is in the form of serial and need
for converting it in to a parallel for this the decoder is used. The decoder converts the
serial data in to parallel, the o/p of the decoder is the same data which is sent from
the transmitter end. The data is now passed to the microcontroller for further actions.
The microcontroller used here is PIC16F 877 which is flash based memory. It is so programmed
that on receiving the particular data the particular action will execute. The controller is
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sensing the data and always in the polling mode which poles the i/p. if the data sent
from the transmitter is for the action of front movement for the robot the particular
binary data is sent in the form of RF waves as when it is interact with receiver further the
sane data is available to the controller and it send the signal to the motor driving unit
so that motors has to rotate in the forward direction and moves the robot in forward.
The motor driving circuit uses relay driving unit which decides the direction ofthe motor with proper polarities as shown in figure 13.
The motors used here is DC type 12V bidirectional. The same action is takes place
for remaining function like backward movement, left, right, forward, seeding and
ploughing motor rotation stop and start etc. To navigate the direction of the robot the
camera is used which capture the image signal. To send the picture info, the AM is used.
The transmitting of these signals is at bandwidth of 5.5MHZthrough the antenna at final
RF frequency of 400-500MHz. When these RF signal interact with receiver unit which is a
remote controlled unit, demodulation will takes place and video data processed in the
AV process block. The o/p now can be connected to TV or pc for monitoring purpose. The
pc can be used with TV tuner card so that robot can be controlled for its movement and also
possible to capture the signals directly on the hard disc.
Fig 12 Block diagram of Remote controller
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Fig 13 Block diagram of Agrobot
7. REFERENCES
[1] Tim Niemueller and Sumedha Widyadharma, Artificial Intelligence An
Introduction to Robotics, July 8, 2003, pp.1 14.
[2] Blackmore, B. S., Fountas, S., Vougioukas, S., Tang, L., Srensen, C. G., and
Jrgensen,R, A method to define agricultural robot behaviors, Mechatronics &
Robotics Conference (MECHROB) ,2004, pp.1197-1200.
[3] S. M. Pedersen S. Fountas H. Have B. S. Blackmore, Agricultural robotssystem analysis and economic feasibility, 27 July 2006, pp. 7:295308
[4] Simon Blackmore, New concepts in agricultural automation, HGCA conference
28 and 29 October 2009.
[5] M. Hakojrvi, M. Hautala, J. Ahokas, T. Oksanen, T. Maksimow, Aspiala, A. Visala,
Platform for simulation of automated crop production, Agronomy Research 8 (1),
pp.797806, 2010
[6] Jinlin Xue , College of Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing ,China and Tony E.Grift, Agricultural Robot Turning in the Headland of Corn Fields,
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International journal of Applied Mechanics and Materials Vols. 63-64, 2011, pp. 780-
784.
[7] Ryosuke TAKAI, Oscar BARAWID Jr., Noboru NOGUCHI, Autonomous Navigation
System of Crawler-Type Robot Tractor, 18th IFAC World Congress, August 28 -
September 2, 2011, pp. 14165 - 14169
[8] Mr. Shrinivas R. Zanwar, Agricultural Robot for Cultivation Process,Vol. I No.1
December-January 2012 ISSN 2249-9032, pp.1-6.
Work done so far:
Literature has revived related to past development in agriculture robot. Methodology of agrobot has prepared.
Work to be carried out:
To design of the robot parts & assembling those are remaining. Programming of agrobot is in process. Remaining to fabricate.