Towards an Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) in Sprinkler Irrigation

Abstract

The new technologies play a more and more important role in improving the productivity over the agriculture industry. The irrigation machines as well as technologies have significant roles. Nowadays, intelligent systems and robots are employed supplementary on irrigation systems, aiming to decrease the manpower defects as well as save on energy and time. In the present work, the sprinkler irrigation classic method (moving sprinkler) is considered in detail and some of the shortcomings of this method are highlighted. Since, in sprinkler irrigation classic method after each period of irrigation the position of the sprinklers have to be replaced by manpower, this difficulty makes the method impractical from time, cost and energy points of view. The purpose of this study is to propose and develop an automatic guide vehicle (AGV) with the capability to change sprinklers timely and on appropriate positions for sprinkler irrigation classic method. The designed AGV is simulated on computer environment and the results show acceptable outcomes.