Smart Farm Assist Robot

Abstract

Autonomy in agriculture is the need of the hour in today’s world. Advancements in technology have made it possible to design autonomous systems that carry out their intended operations efficiently, without any human intervention. However, most farmers still carry out agricultural operations manually using simple and conventional tools like a wooden plough, sickle, etc. Large-scale mechanization and autonomous systems are affordable only by medium and large class farmers who possess more than 2.00 hectares of agricultural land. Marginal and small-class farmers find it difficult in managing the workforce at an affordable cost. A user-friendly cost-effective approach will be a valuable support system for this sector. This paper proposes a novel design of a seed sowing robot with two operating modes; manual control by the operator and remote operation through GPS. The proposed seed sowing bot extracts the features of the agricultural field under consideration and adopts the optimal speed for seed sowing. Parameters like temperature, humidity, and soil moisture, which are pivotal in carrying out agricultural operations are measured by the use of different sensors embedded in the robot. Arduino ATMEGA2560 controls the locomotion of the bot and Raspberry Pi is used for image classification and obstacle detection. Sunset and the presence of rain are detected and the corresponding feasible actions are programmed to be followed by the robot automatically. A user-friendly mobile application has been developed to issue commands to the robot. The robot intends to reduce human efforts and provide intelligent aid to marginal and small class farmers while being affordable.