International Conference on Current Trends in Engineering and Technology, ICCTET’13
Certain Investigation Of Precision Agriculture
Robot Using Lab View
S.Mohan E.Praveen Kumar
Department of Digital Electronics and Department of Communication Systems,
Communication, Bannari Amman Institute Of
Nehru Institute Of Technology, Technology,
Coimbatore, India. Sathyamangalam, India.
lmohan35@gmail.com
Abstract— Developed agriculture needs to find new ways to
improve efficiency. One approach is to utilise available
information technologies in the form of more intelligent
machines to reduce and target energy inputs in more
effective ways than in the past. Precision Farming has
shown benefits of this approach but we can now move
towards a new generation of equipment. [1]The advent of
autonomous system architectures gives us the opportunity to
develop a complete new range of agricultural equipment
based on small smart machines that can do the right thing,
in the right place, at the right time in the right way.
Autonomous agricultural robots that could identify, spray
and pick individual rice and wheat may soon be a reality.
The process might help advance other fields too including
robotic surgery and other medical application. The concept
of designing agriculture robot can be achieved by using lab
view software and GSM to interface the robot and PC.
Keywords— Robots, Mechanisation, Robotic Weeding,
Phytotechnology, Labview Software, GSM.
1. Introduction
Commercial farms of the future may be staffed by
robots that will identify, spray and pick individual pieces of
produce from plants, even when their targets are producing
rice and wheat by robot in agricultural field. As scientists in
Israel and Europe get closer to this goal, experts say the work
has a number of potential benefits. Autonomous agricultural
robots could protect human workers from the harmful effects
of handling chemicals by hand. And through a system of
highly selective spraying, robots could reduce a farm's use
of pesticides by up to 80 percent.
[2]Robots could also offer a timely supply of labor in
many places, where there simply aren't enough itinerant
workers available at the right times in the harvesting cycle.
Meanwhile, attempts to create robots that can see, grasp and
learn could end up having widespread applications in
medicine, video games and more. And while scientists have
been working to develop robots for agricultural labor for
more than 20 years, a new project is taking a more cerebral
approach. The goal is to teach computers to see like humans
do and to get better at their jobs as they work and learn.
Modern agriculture uses a lot of energy. It comes in
many forms from fertilizers and chemicals to tractors and
fuel. The Phytotechnology approach tries to target the
introduced energy to improve efficacy. Chamen (2009)
identified that a 70% energy saving can be made in cultivation
energy by moving from traditional trafficked systems (255
MJ/ha) to a non-trafficked system (79 MJ/ha). [3]This was for
shallow ploughing and did not include any deep loosening.
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IEEE – 32107
July 3, 2013, Coimbatore, India.
319
B.Paulchamy
Hindusthan Institute Of Technology,
Coimbatore, India.
From this we estimate that 80-90% of the energy going into
traditional cultivation is there to repair the damage done by
large tractors. It would be much better to not cause compaction
in the first place which is one of the reasons that leads us to
consider using small light machines. 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.
An example might be an autonomous seeder that could
function well, while the soil is still wet in the springtime,
provided [4]that the soil engagement mechanism is suitable
arranged. This would allow the seeds to be planted when
optimal for the crop and not be limited by the soil's ability to
support the tractor. Safety is another important factor. Any
autonomous vehicle is going to go wrong at some time and
the chance of catastrophic failure should be minimized
within the design process. A small light vehicle is inherently
safer than a large one. Redundant, self checking systems
should be built into the system architecture to allow graceful
degradation.
The vehicle should be in continual communication with the
base station, giving data about current conditions and
contexts. Many of the design parameters are discussed in
(Blackmore et al. 2009a). [5]This approach may not be
economically justifiable in many broad acre crops but will
certainly be more attractive in high value crops where a smart
machine can replace expensive repetitive labor. If this
approach were taken, it would appear that the crop production
cycle could be reduced to three stages: Seeding, Plant care and
(selective) harvesting.
2. Litrerature Review
A. Cheamen (seed bed preparation)
Ploughing is one of the most important primary
cultivation processes and has been carried out since the start of
civilization. It is effectively the inversion or mixing of topsoil
to prepare a suitable seed bed. It also has the ability to bury
surface crop residues and control weeds. A small robot
utilizing current technology does not have the energy density
to sustain [6]ploughing over a large area due to the high levels
of energy needed to cut and invert the dense soil. Secondly, the
draft force required to plough also needs relatively high
weight to give traction.
B. Griepentrog( seed mapping )
Seed mapping is the concept of passively recording
the geospatial position of each seed as it goes into the ground.
It is relatively simple in practice as an RTK GPS is fitted to
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the seeder and infra red sensors mounted below the seed
chute. As the seed drops, it cuts the infrared beam and
triggers a data logger that records the position and
orientation of the seeder. A simple kinematic model can then
calculate the actual seed position (Griepentrog et al. 2009).
The seed coordinates can then be used to target subsequent
plant based operations.
F. Pedersen (Weed mapping)
Weed mapping is process of recording the position and
preferably the density (biomass) of different weed species
using aspects of machine vision. One method is to just record
the increased leaf area found in weedy areas as weeds are
patchy and the crops are planted in rows (Pedersen 2009).

C. Shibusawa( 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.
Most seeds are dropped at high densities within each row,
whilst having relatively more space between the rows. From
first agronomic principles, each plant should have equal access
to spatial resources of air, light, ground moisture, etc.
Perhaps a hexagonal or triangular seeding pattern might be
more efficient in this context. If suitable controls are fitted to
allow synchronization between passes, then there is the
possibility to plant seeds on a regular grid that can allow
orthogonal inter-row weeding. Tests of such a machine will be
carried out at KVL in 2008.
D. Godwin(Reseeding)
Reseeding is the concept of being able to identify
where a seed was not planted, or that a crop plant has not
emerged and a machine can automatically place another seed
in the same position. This concept could be extended to
transplanting a seedling instead of a seed if the surrounding
plants are too far advanced. A reseeder would have the ability
to insert individual seeds/plants without disturbing the
surrounding crop. Conventional seeders could not then be used
as they create continuous slots in the soil with one seedling at
a time. Prior local micro-cultivation could be achieved by
using a targeted water jet (or gel) to pierce the soil and soften
it ready for the seedling roots.
Fig.2 Portal Crop Scouting Platform (Madsen and Jakobsen
2008), Sub Canopy Robot ISAAC2 Built By A Student Team
From Hohenheim University
G. Norremark and Griepentrog (Robotic Weeding)
Knowing the position and severity of the weeds there
are many methods that can kill, remove or retard these
unwanted plants (Nørremark and Griepentrog 2008)[7]
Different physical methods can be used that rely on physical
interaction with the weeds. A classic example is to break
the soil and root interface by tillage and promote wilting of the
weed plants. This can be achieved in the inter row area easily
by using classical spring or duck foot tines. This is part of the
design parameters for the Autonomous Christmas Tree weeder
being developed at KVL.
H. Lund,Logaard and Graglia(Micro Spraying)
Within the close-to-crop area, great care must be
taken not to damage the crop nor disturb the soil. One
method of killing weeds close to the crop plants is to use a
micro spray that delivers very small amounts directly on to
the weed leaf. Machine vision can be used to identify the
position of an individual weed plant and a nozzles mounted
close together can squirt a herbicide on to the weed.

3. Block Diagram

Fig.1 Example Of A Figure Caption

E. Bak and Jakobsen( crop scouting)

One of the main operations within good management is
the ability to collect timely and accurate information.
Quantified data has tended to be expensive and sampling costs
can quickly out weigh the benefits of spatially variable
management. The portal robot shown in Figure 2, has been
extensively modified and rebuilt and has been used to provide
automated crop surveys (Bak and Jakobsen, 2009). A range of
sensors have been fitted to measure crop nutrient status and
stress (multi spectral response), visible images (pan
chromatic), weed species and weed density. Fig.3 Block Diagram The Water Flow

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IEEE – 32107
July 3, 2013, Coimbatore, India.
International Conference on Current Trends in Engineering and Technology, ICCTET’13
4. The WAter Flow
The robot has to be connected to an overhead water
supply applying the water for the crops. A hose from the water
tank is connected to the robot. The hose is supported on the
framework of the gantry itself. This does not hinder the
movement of the robot. [8]The water rate is controlled by a
timer which opens a valve for a definite time depending on
the moisture requirements of the soil at a particular co-
ordinate. Fig. 5 explains the flow and control of the water by
the robot. The robot gets its positional details from the
optical encoders mounted on the motor shafts of the linear
drives. From the co-ordinate detail, the robot finds the
moisture requirement of the soil at that co-ordinate. The water
outlet solenoid valve is then opened for an appropriate time.
Fig.4 The Autonomous Christmas Tree Weeder, Young
Christmas Trees With Patchy Weeds.
Fig.5 The Vertical Screw Drive
5. Drilling Operations Realized By The Robot
It is known that the characteristics of the robots, in
general, are utilized to give a flexibility to the system and,
therefore, the complexity of the robotic model is increasing
slower the number of degrees of freedom, compared with the
general type of some manipulators [9].In Fig.3, is illustrated
on a micro-drilling, system being in development based on
micro robots.Each of the small robots,used in this system
has a pair of electromagnets and piezoelectric elements to
move precisely as an “ inchworm”,and is specialized to
handle one or two specific operations.
Fig 6. The Assembly Of A Micro-Drilling System Based On
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IEEE – 32107
July 3, 2013, Coimbatore, India.
321
Micro-Robots
This mechanism can provide fine mobility with step
by step microscopic motion and stable clamping on such a
surface during operation, even on vertical walls and ceiling,
all over on the vast working space, even if the target area is
limited to ferromagnetic surfaces. In an input voltage of 100
V on piezoelectric element, the typically step is about 10
microns, so it can move at a speed of 1.5 mm / s when is
activated a frequency of 150 Hz. Also, the different pitch of
each piezoelectric element can command the direction of
motion. However, the electricity and the robot control signal
are transmitted by wire, because of high voltage sent to the
piezo-element and high amperage sent to the electromagnet,
this should be improved in a future by advanced technology
[10], [11].In such robotic systems is essential to incorporate
visual monitoring tools, such as CCD camera, and computer
resources to control them, but this system is very
complicated. Therefore, it is developed a simple navigation
system, of acoustic type, for example. To achieve the proper
task of drilling have been developed three types of micro-
robots [12], [13], [14]. One of them is equipped with a thin
drill, with the gearbox on axis; the others have the shafts
mechanisms commanded by D C micro engines. The little part
that will be holed is going to be held by the micro-robot who
can move even on the vertical walls. After that, the product
positions and the drill characteristics are fairly fixed, the
micro-robots with engines can approach by the robot with
drills for drilling. Then the robot from vertical wall can carry
the piece down to the drill and carefully push for a hole from
start to finish [10].
6. Conclusion
This paper has set out a vision of how aspects of crop
production could be automated in the future. Although
existing manned operations can be efficient over large areas
there is a potential for reducing the scale of treatments with
autonomous machines that may Result in even higher
efficiencies. The development process may be incremental but
the Overall concept requires a paradigm shift in the way we
think about mechanization for crop production that is based
more on plant needs and novel ways of meeting them rather
than modifying existing techniques.
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© IEEE 2013
IEEE – 32107
July 3, 2013, Coimbatore, India.