International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology (IJEAT)

ISSN: 2249-8958 (Online), Volume-8 Issue-2, December 2018

Design and Development of Unmanned Chemical

Spraying Rover for Agriculture Application
M. Karthik, Nikhil Singh, Eshan Sinha, Bharani S. Anand, Gowreesh S. S.

Abstract: There is an increase in usage of Unmanned Ground

Vehicle (UGV) in the field of agriculture, specifically for the
purpose of spraying fertilizers and pesticides. However despite
existing technologies, no such platform has been created so far
which aims to provide rover chemical spraying that can be used in
a high risk areas at a low cost for extended periods of time. The
principal objective of the present work is to Design and Develop a
Unmanned Chemical Spraying Rover, to be able to overcome any
kind of obstacle on the agricultural field, and a simple yet Fig 1. Types of Spraying Mechanisms used in Agriculture
indigenous low cost mechanism for precise spraying agricultural
enhancers such as fertilizers, pesticides, and insecticides. These
primary objectives must be realized in a platform costing lower
than similar alternatives in the market. The user can achieve
controllable motion and variable flow of the enhancer by a
suitable tethered, ground based remote control interface.
Objective of the present work also aims to develop a multi-purpose
rover machine, which can be used in tortuous terrain, crops and
plantations of diverged heights. The Rover is maneuvered with
the help of six geared motors each attached to one wheel. The
rover’s movement will be controlled using Bluetooth remote
control, where the transmitter will be a smart phone.
Keywords: Bluetooth Controlled Rover, Fertilizer Spraying
Rover, Geared and Servo Motor, Mini-Hydraulic Pump, Rocker
Bogie Mechanism, Solid works.

Fig 2. Unmanned Chemical Spraying Rover

I. INTRODUCTION
The literature study carried out shows that there is an increase
Pesticides have numerous advantageous effects. These
in usage of Unmanned Ground Vehicle in the field of
include protection of crops, preservation of agricultural
agriculture, specifically for the purpose of spraying fertilizers
commodities, wood products and vector-borne diseases.
and pesticides. However, no such platform has been created
Unmanned Chemical Spraying Rover is designed such a way
so far which aims to provide rover chemical spraying and can
that it can carry 1.5 litres of pesticides in a closed chamber.
be used in a high risk areas at a low cost for extended periods
With the help of mini-pump pesticides are sprayed precisely
of time, despite existing technologies.[4]
from the nozzle at the target. This will reduce the amount of
pesticides required to control the harmful effect of pests.
II. OBJECTIVES
Unmanned Chemical Spraying Rover will automate slow,
repetitive and dull tasks for farmers, allowing them to focus Since the rover available in the market currently are limited
more on improving overall production yields. by their high initial cost, an alternative low cost means for
agriculture application is necessary [2].
With the view of the above scenario, the current work focuses
on the design and development of a rover spraying platform
powered by six motorized wheels[5]. Remote operation of
the rover platform is achieved by the user through a suitable
Manuscript published on 30 December 2018. interface. Hence, our specific objectives are as follows:
* Correspondence Author (s)
M. Karthik, Department of Mechanical Engineering, JSS Academy of
➢ To achieve all terrain controllable vehicle for
Technical Education, Bengaluru (Karnataka), India. agriculture purposes.
Nikhil Singh, Department of Mechanical Engineering, JSS Academy of ➢ To develop a chemical spraying platform powered by
Technical Education, Bengaluru (Karnataka), India.
Eshan Sinha, Department of Mechanical Engineering, JSS Academy of
mini- pump.
Technical Education, Bengaluru (Karnataka), India. ➢ To develop a cost effective rover in the market.
Bharani S Anand, Department of Mechanical Engineering, JSS Academy
of Technical Education, Bengaluru (Karnataka), India.
Gowreesh S. S, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical
Engineering, JSS Academy of Technical Education, Bengaluru (Karnataka),
India.

© The Authors. Published by Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and

Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the
CC-BY-NC-ND license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Published By:
Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
Retrieval Number B5524128218/18©BEIESP and Sciences Publication (BEIESP)
Journal Website: www.ijeat.org 18 © Copyright: All rights reserved.
 Design and Development of Unmanned Chemical Spraying Rover for Agriculture Application

III. METHODOLOGY C. CAD Modeling and System Overview

A. Motor Calculation

mgx = mg*sin(θ)
mgy = mg*cos(θ)
Balancing the forces in the x-directions Fig 3. Isometric View of the Rover
∑Fx= ma= f - mgx
Inserting the torque equation in above Eq.
ma = (T÷R)– (mg*sin(θ))
T=m*(a + g*sin(θ))*R … (Eq. 1)
Considering 45° inclination
Using Eq. 1 we have
T=m*(a + g*sin(θ))*R
T=3*(0.5+9.81* sin(45°))*0.05
T=1.1155 Nm
Power, Current And Battery Backup Calculations
Power, P= 2πNT÷60
N = 30 RPM (N = Speed of motor)
∴ P=(2π*30*1.1155)÷60
P=3.50445 Watts
Current, I= P÷V ( P=V*I )
I=3.50445÷12 (Assuming V=12V)
I=0.29204 A
Battery Backup,
Ampere Hour is specified by the builder,
i.e. R=2.5 Ah Fig 4. Front View of the Rover
IA=PA÷V (PA is actual power of the battery)
TA = 24KgCm (Specified by the builder)
TA= 2.3544 Nm
PA = (2π*30*2.3544)÷60
PA = 7.39656 Watts
IA= 7.39656÷12
IA=0.61638 A
Battery Backup, Time = R÷IA
Time = 2.5÷0.61638
Time = 4.056 Hrs
B. Calculation Summary
Table 1. Calculation Table
Angle of Torque Power P Current I
S. No
Inclination T (Nm) Watts (W) (A)
1 10° 0.3305 1.03823 0.08652
2 30° 0.8108 2.5472 0.21227
3 45° 1.1155 3.50445 0.29204
4 60° 1.3494 4.23926 0.35327 Fig 5. Top View of the Rover
5 90° 1.5465 4.85847 0.40487

Published By:
Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
Retrieval Number B5524128218/18©BEIESP and Sciences Publication (BEIESP)
Journal Website: www.ijeat.org 19 © Copyright: All rights reserved.
 International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology (IJEAT)
ISSN: 2249-8958 (Online), Volume-8 Issue-2, December 2018

from the USB or its independent DC port. There are diverse

characteristics of this board are:
1. Digital I/O pins: These are numbers 0-13 on the Arduino
board and is used to take input and output based on the
software flashed and returns a 0 or 1 that is low or high
signals
2. Analog Input signal: These are numbered (A0- to A5)
and are used to scan for analog signals from the sensors.
3. AT mega 328: Arduino are built on the ATMEL’s AT
mega 328microcontroller. Which is a8bit microcontroller and
has the following set of characters:
• Flash memory of 32 kb ISP (Instructions per Second)
with read-while-write capabilities.
• EEPROM of 1024 Byte and 32 Pin count.
• Number of General use I/O lines- 23.
• Number of Ext. and Int. Interrupts- 24.
• USART Serial Interface Device.
• 1.8-5.5Vof Operation Range.
E. Application
1. The android application that is used for controlling this
Fig 6. System Overview Robot is “Bluetooth RC” and is available on Google play
From the proposed system overview given in Fig. 5, we can Store.
see that the Rover is controlled by a Smartphone running on 2. The application is connected to hc-05 Bluetooth module in
an Android application. The Rover’s control unit is the car and controlled either by the directional keys or by
developed using Arduino microcontroller. The Rover’s the gyroscope of the mobile.
control unit is equipped with two L298N motor driver, a
camera, a Bluetooth receiver, two servo motor(for controlling
the direction of spraying), one pump motor(to spray the
pesticide),two 12V dry cell batteries and six 12V 30RPM DC
motors. One of the L298N motor diver commands the
movement and direction of the rover while the other motor
driver controls the spraying of pesticide, while the Arduino
solves the data collected large distance from the Bluetooth
module send by the android phone application. The Android
operating system has an application which makes use of the
mobile’s inbuilt orientation sensor to control the movement
in four directions (forward, backward, left and right) as
instructed by the user; the rotation of the rover in left of right
direction is achieved by a mechanism known as “Steer By
Drift Method”, hence rotating the mobile phone in any
Fig 7. Application in Directional Keys
particular directions results into the corresponding
propulsion of the unmanned rover and there is also an option
for only direction control by arrows on the android
application. The directional control commands are
communicated to the unmanned rover through the Bluetooth
communication via Bluetooth module.
D. CAD Modeling and System Overview
Arduino is nothing but a board based on microcontroller,
which gets its source of power from the assistance of a
battery or a DC adapter. Arduino has been developed as an
environment which is open sourced, which gives opportunity
to beginners and also a platform to establish their electronics
and coding skills as there are a lot of both online and offline
content for Arduino in terms of supports like add-on kit, the
project codes, forums and tutorials. Different versions of
Fig 8. Application using Gyroscope of Mobile
Arduino boards are accessible and larger boards can give
more memory and also with various other controller and
which will come with significantly higher amounts of inputs
and outputs. The Arduino, whose architecture is built on the
AT mega 328 platform and can have energy source either
Published By:
Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
Retrieval Number B5524128218/18©BEIESP and Sciences Publication (BEIESP)
Journal Website: www.ijeat.org 20 © Copyright: All rights reserved.
 Design and Development of Unmanned Chemical Spraying Rover for Agriculture Application

IV. PROTOTYPE RESULTS ACKNOWLEDGMENT

A scaled down prototype of the final model is achieved. This work has been supported by Head of the Department,
The pesticide spraying mechanism in agriculture field as Department of Mechanical engineering, JSSATE, Bangalore.
been tested.
REFERENCES
1. Mifune, H., Saitoh, S., Kaneda, T., Tomokiyo, S., Adachi, T., Tanaka, T.
and Furudate, T., Tomokiyo White Ant Co Ltd, 1995. Intellectual
working robot of self controlling and running. U.S. Patent 5,465,525.
2. Jindal, H., Stair Climbing Robot. coordinates, 1, p.2
3. Raval, M., Dhandhukia, A. and Mohile, S., Development and
Automation of Robot with Spraying Mechanism for Agricultural
Applications.
4. Siegwart, R., Lamon, P., Estier, T., Lauria, M. and Piguet, R., 2002.
Innovative design for wheeled locomotion in rough terrain. Robotics and
Autonomous systems, 40(2-3), pp.151-162.
5. Falcone, E., Gockley, R., Porter, E. and Nourbakhsh, I., 2003. The
Personal Rover Project: The comprehensive design of a domestic
personal robot. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 42(3-4), pp.245-258

AUTHOR PROFILE
Fig 9a. Actual Picture of Rover (Isometric View) M. Karthik, B.E. Mechanical Engg., Department of
Mechanical Engineering, JSSATE Bangalore. Profile in
brief: Analytical Mechanical Engineer.
✓ Over 2.5+ years of experience designing advanced
surface and assembly, New product designing and
development, Technical trouble shooting and problem
solving.
✓ Member, Toyota Industries Engine India Pvt. Ltd (TIEI)
✓ Member, SAE India.

Nikhil Singh, B.E. Mechanical Engg.

Department of Mechanical Engineering, JSSATE
Bangalore.
✓ Member, SAE India.

Eshan Sinha, B.E. Mechanical Engg. Department of

Mechanical Engineering. JSSATE Bangalore.
Fig 9b. CAD Model of Rover (Isometric View)

Bharani S Anand, B.E. Mechanical Engg., Department of

Mechanical Engineering, JSSATE Bangalore.
✓ Member, SAE India.

Fig 9c. Actual Picture of Rover (Side View)

Fig 9d. CAD Model of Rover (Side View)

Published By:
Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
Retrieval Number B5524128218/18©BEIESP and Sciences Publication (BEIESP)
Journal Website: www.ijeat.org 21 © Copyright: All rights reserved.