Design and development of remote controlled Robotrac for agri.

Applications

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF REMOTE CONTROLLED

ROBOT FOR AGRI. APPLICATIONS
ABSTRACT
An agricultural robot or agro-bot is a robot deployed for agricultural purposes.
The main area of application of robots in agriculture is at the harvesting stage.
Fruit picking robots and digging, ploughing and seeding robots are designed to
replace human labor. The agricultural industry is behind other complementary
industries in using robots because the sort of jobs involved in agriculture are not
straightforward, and many repetitive tasks are not require to do.
This project strives to develop a robot capable of performing operations like
automatic ploughing, seed dispensing and pesticide spraying. It also provides manual
control when required and keeps tabs on the humidity with the help of humidity
sensors .The main component here is the microcontroller that supervises the entire
process. Initially the robot tills the entire field and proceeds to ploughing,
simultaneously dispensing seeds side by side. The device used for navigation is an
ultrasonic sensor which continuously sends data to the microcontroller. On the
field the robot operates on automated mode, but outside the field is strictly
operated in manual mode. For manual control the robot uses the Bluetooth pairing
app as control device and helps in the navigation of the robot outside the field.

Key words —Agricultural Robot, Harvesting, ploughing, seed dispensing,

automation.
 Design and development of remote controlled Robotrac for agri. Applications

1. INTRODUCTION

Farmers today spend a lot of money on machines that help them decrease labor work and
increase yield of crops. There are various machines that are available for ploughing,
harvesting, spraying pesticides etc., however these machines have to be manually
operated to perform the required operations and moreover separate machines are used for
every functions. The yield and profit returns from employing this equipment are very less
as compared to the investment. Another issue is the growing demands of the world’s
population. The World Health Organization estimates that Earth’s population will touch 9
billion in 35 years which will lead to a staggering demand in increase of growth of food
crops. Automation is the ideal solution to overcome all the above mentioned
shortcomings by creating machines that perform more than one operation and automating
those operations to increase yield on a large scale.
As one of the trends of development on automation and intelligence of agricultural
machinery in the 21st century, all kinds of agricultural robots have been researched and
developed to implement a number of agricultural production in many countries, such as
picking, harvesting, weeding, pruning, planting, grafting, agricultural classification, etc.
And they gradually appear advantages in agricultural production to increase productivity.
Autonomous agricultural robots are an alternative to the tractors found on fields today.
Cultivation tasks like seeding, spraying, fertilizing and harvesting may be performed by
fleets of autonomous agricultural robots in the future. Independent of the actual design a
serious agricultural robot will be a complex and expensive vehicle – the challenge is
therefore to prove that it is competitive to traditional technology and may even bring a
decisive lead.
One critical factor here is the optimal utilization of the robot over the day and over the
year. To reach a full utilization the agricultural robot needs to be a vehicle with some
basic capabilities and the possibility to support multiple applications. Among the basic
capabilities we surely require a navigation system for safe and autonomous navigation.
India’s record of progress over the past four decades in agriculture has been quite
impressive. In the current generation, man power shortage is a major problem specifically
 Design and development of remote controlled Robotrac for agri. Applications

in agricultural sector and it affects the growth of developing countries. In India at most
70% of people are dependent on agriculture. The progressive invention in agriculture
system is becoming an important task because of rising demand on quality of agriculture
products and declining labor availability in rural farming areas.
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 don’t have to deal with uneven terrain or changing conditions.
Scientists are working on overcoming these problems.
Traditional methods include broadcasting manually. The common practice for digging
the fields are by using bull or by tractor and the method of sowing the seeds are by hand.
Later, the seeds are sowed in the furrow through a bamboo funnel attached to a country
plough. For example sowing seeds in small areas they employ dibbling method i.e.,
making holes or slits by a stick or tool and dropping seeds by hand is practiced. Later, the
multi row traditional seeding devices with manual metering of seeds are quite popular
with experienced farmers. It is a large time consuming approach. Besides being wasteful,
planting was very imprecise and lead to a poor distribution of seeds.
Why to use agro-bots??
Autonomous agricultural robots are an alternative to the tractors found on fields today.
Cultivation tasks like seeding, spraying, fertilizing and harvesting may be performed by
fleets of autonomous agricultural robots in the future. Independent of the actual design a
serious agricultural robot will be a complex and expensive vehicle – the challenge is
therefore to prove that it is competitive to traditional technology and may even bring a
decisive lead.
One critical factor here is the optimal utilization of the robot over the day and over the
year. To reach a full utilization the agricultural robot needs to be a vehicle with some
basic capabilities and the possibility to support multiple applications. Among the basic
capabilities we surely require a navigation system for safe and autonomous navigation.
 Design and development of remote controlled Robotrac for agri. Applications

India’s record of progress over the past four decades in agriculture has been quite
impressive. In the current generation, man power shortage is a major problem specifically
in agricultural sector and it affects the growth of developing countries. In India at most
70% of people are dependent on agriculture. The progressive invention in agriculture
system is becoming an important task because of rising demand on quality of agriculture
products and declining labor availability in rural farming areas.
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 don’t have to deal with uneven terrain or changing conditions.
Scientists are working on overcoming these problems.
Traditional methods include broadcasting manually. The common practice for digging
the fields are by using bull or by tractor and the method of sowing the seeds are by hand.
Later, the seeds are sowed in the furrow through a bamboo funnel attached to a country
plough. For example sowing seeds in small areas they employ dibbling method i.e.,
making holes or slits by a stick or tool and dropping seeds by hand is practiced. Later, the
multi row traditional seeding devices with manual metering of seeds are quite popular
with experienced farmers. It is a large time consuming approach. Besides being wasteful,
planting was very imprecise and lead to a poor distribution of seeds.
Robots in Agriculture – Agro-bots:
Agriculture is humankind’s oldest and still important economic activity, providing the
food, feeder, fiber and fuel necessary for our survival. The current trend in agricultural
robot development is to build more smart efficient machines that reduce the expense of
the farmer while still providing one more services and higher quality which is precisely
what we have done in this paper. Development of a robot that can perform automated
ploughing and seeding operation can be manually navigated by the farmer and stabilizes
the humidity in the environment.
 Design and development of remote controlled Robotrac for agri. Applications

Robotics and automation can play a significant role in enhancing agricultural production
needs. Automation can be done by man in operations such as pruning thinning and
harvesting, as well as mowing, spraying and weed removal. We can also implement with
the advancement in sensors and control systems that allow for optimal resource and
integrated disease and pest management. In this project, the rover is developed which is
used to automate the process of digging and sowing crops such as sunflower, baby corn,
groundnut and vegetables like beans, lady’s finger, pumpkin and pulses like black gram,
green gram etc. and to reduce the human effort and to increase the yield. All these
process are advanced by modifying the mechanism in farming which is self-guided by
giving commands in PC or mobile and sending through a wireless module. The obstacle
detector and sowing control sensor are also used.
 Design and development of remote controlled Robotrac for agri. Applications

TABLE1
COMPARISON BETWEEN SEED SOWING METHODS
S.no Parameters Manual Tractor Digging and seed
plantation
machine

1 Man Power More Moderate Less

2 Time Required More More Less

3 Digging and Sowing Manually Manually Automatically

technique

4 Adjustable seed No No Yes

Distance

5 Seed Wastage Moderate More Less

6 Energy High Very Less

Needed High
7 Pollution No More No
8 Alarm and Display No No Yes

DR.D.Y. PATIL Inst. Of Engg. And Tech. Department of mechanical engineering 6

 Design and development of remote controlled Robotrac for agri. Applications

BLOCK DIAGRAM

5V POWER
DSUPPLY
RF WIRELESS FOR
RECIECER 8051 MICROCONT
AND DECODER MICRO ROLLER
MODULE CONTROLLER

WIRELESS
CONNECTION L293D
MOTOR
DRIVER
RF WIRELESS RELAY
ENCODER AND
TRANSMITTER

REMOTE CONTROL
WHEEL DIGGER
MOTOR MOTOR

DR.D.Y. PATIL Inst. Of Engg. And Tech. Department of mechanical engineering 7

 Design and development of remote controlled Robotrac for agri. Applications

COMPONENTS AND DESCRIPTION

This Project work is divided into two modules.

1. Mechanical module
2. Electronic module

MECHANICAL MODULE:
The mechanical parts of the robot are designed with the help of CATIA Design
Software. The line diagram of the digging mechanism, seed sowing rotatory drum and
bottom of the robot is drawn and it is converted to three dimensional diagram.
The mechanical module of the rover consist of,
 Seed Storage and dispenser
 Ploughing unit
 Chassis
 Drive unit (DC motors)
 Wheels

ELECTRONIC MODULE:
It consist of
 8051 microcontroller
 RF wireless module
 L293D motor driver
 Wireless controller
 LCD module

DR.D.Y. PATIL Inst. Of Engg. And Tech. Department of mechanical engineering 8

 Design and development of remote controlled Robotrac for agri. Applications

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

Advantages
1- It is one of the latest and sophisticated system
2- It control whole system automatically.
3- It is reliable and requires less maintenance.
4- It is Affordable.
5--The system working is simple and easy to use.

Disadvantages
1-Need DC power supply all time and quickly discharged.
2- Need of skilled workers to drive and for maintenance.

APPLICATIONS
1-The system or robot can be mainly use in agricultural field.
2-It is used in home gardening.
3-It is used in sports ground
4-It is used in fruit gardens.

DR.D.Y. PATIL Inst. Of Engg. And Tech. Department of mechanical engineering 9