Nursery Planting Agribot

Project Title

Nursery Planting Agribot

Project Area of Specialization RoboticsProject Summary

With the growing population, the need for implementation of advanced methods in the field of agriculture is increasing, which is why the concepts of robotics and their uses, particularly in agriculture, have been of great interest to engineers for a long time. The use of technology can help in increasing the efficiency and yield of agricultural efforts. However, most of the research efforts have been dedicated to automated fruit picking or crop monitoring. The main purpose of this project is to help in overcoming this limitation by providing a multipurpose platform prototype with integrated mechanisms for nursery planting and seed harvesting. The applications, even of this prototype, range from automating nurseries to low scale agriculture tasks. The robot has been designed in such a way that it allows the integration of suitable hardware modules for specific tasks without involving huge costs, thus proving itself to be cost-effective. With the constant improvements of the product, it can not only benefit the agricultural sector of Pakistan but can also be exported to other countries, thus providing a stronger foothold in the field of robotics.

Project Objectives

In most areas of the country, timeworn methods of cultivation are employed in order to carry out the task of seed dispersion. Apart from that, the plantation of the trees has been carried out with the same approach. Those conventional methods are not only time taking but also requires a massive number of manpower. Also the lack of skilled personals results in non-uniformity among the dispersed seeds and the seeds do not get to the required amount of depth for growth. The questions “why conventional methods of seed dispersion are time-taking?” and “how plants can get to their required depth in soil?” Can be answered with the approach of re-analyzing the conventional-methods of cultivation. One of the best methodology to consider in this regard is to introduce the trends of robotics and automation in the agricultural sector. In this regard a small multipurpose robot can be designed that would be able to carry out those time taking tasks in no time with no human interference i-e. autonomously.

The objective of this Nursery planting Agribot is to design and develop an autonomous multi-task performing robot to:

1. Supplant the conventional methods of seed dispersion and plantation.

2. Reduce the time taken by the outdated tasks of the plantation and to boost the efficiency of seed dispersion and plantation tasks.
3. Diminish the maximum immersion of manpower in the execution of tasks of cultivation.

Project Implementation Method

The project implementation took place in a series of several steps.which are as follows:

Necessary data collection

A thorough research has been done and necessary data regarding different aspects of the agribot been gathered. Essential decisions has been made based upon the data gathered via research. Data from other similar or different agribots is gathered to study their structure working in the field. This also includes the data about the design of the agribots. The design depends on the type of the machine, its working and surrounding conditions. For this multi-purpose agribot, the design is the primary concern. The data from the other agribots helps in designing a solid and compatible design for the multi-purpose agribots.

Mathematical approach

In order to get to the requirements of the project, the mathematical approach has been opted where necessary calculations regarding the required driving motors and battery has been done.

Design and analysis for agribot

Based on the study and information from the data collected, a suitable design is chosen for the agribot. The design is made by the help of CADCAE technology; SolidWorks software. The design is made keeping in consideration, all of the readings gathered before. So, it is made in a way to accomplish all the tasks required. The design is also made for proper manoeuvring in any type of field and to house all of the components of the agribot.

A major part of the research and design includes the FEM analysis on the design of agribot, which was made in parallel to the solid modelling of the agribot. Based upon the data gathered from the simulation software, a stable and a sound solid structure of the agribot has been designed. The simulation software been used for this purpose is ANSYS.

Fabrication

After getting the necessary and desired results from the analysis, fabrication been done.The fabricated design of the agribot is the final hardware of the project. The components i.e. motors, mechanisms, sensors, tyres, batteries etc. are added to the agribot. Complete installation of the components provides the finished hardware portion of the agribot.

Automating the agribot

Once the agribot’s hardware is complete, its automation is to be done. This makes the agribot autonomous capable of performing autonomous tasks.

Benefits of the Project

There are a lot of important factors which led us to the adoption of robotics in agriculture. And these are largely related to the consumers, farmers, market size, and commercial production factories, and the difficult and complicated process involving planting, seeding, watering as well as the cheap agricultural labor availability. The precision and productivity, time frame reduction, environmental friendly, housing and transportation, and trending market are among the major playmakers, and are more talked about than ever before.

Starting with the complicated steps of farming, we all have seen how difficult the farming job can be, i.e. working 12 hours a day and 7 days a week, and still more to the daily routine. Moreover, bending yourself for half a the entire day planting seedling in a row then next day, watering the new planted plants or newly born seedling from the seed really is a dauting task.

Furthermore, manual labor is pretty much expensive and in seasoning crop seeding, you won't even find labor that easy. The usual "5$-a-day-labor" will be round about to 45$ in a season of harvesting, planting, and seeding. And that's where the Agribot takes all of the complications out of the way, in a much cheaper and efficient way.

Oh, did we tell you that having 50 worker in a field with a task of planting seed or seedling may cost you 2250$ for the day, depending on the area and task, while the same can be done by a 1000$ agribot can do, and that too on a regular basis?

As far as customers are concerned, they will always go for cost efficient methods as long as the means, themselves, are cost efficient and gaurantee results.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

 Nursery planting agribot consists of a solid structural body for holding various components. For moving purposes, four wheels are used with the body. The wheels are driven by two drive motors placed inside the body. Motors are connected to the wheels using a belt mechanism. The Agribot is driven using the differential drive method. Each motor drives 2 tires on each side of the Agribot. The motors and all other electrical components are powered by a battery pack. Drilling mechanism of the Agribot is mounted inside the body on the front side of the Agribot. The drilling mechanism utilizes two motors for moving the drill motor vertically. The drilling motor is used to drill holes in the ground. The seeding mechanism uses a single motor to control the drop of seeds. Using a timed servo motor, a slitting mechanism is used to drop the seeds. Seeds pass through the slit of the designed mechanism driven by the motor. 

GPS sensor is used to locate and navigate the Agribot in its environment. All of the motors and sensors are controlled by the Raspberry Pi microcontroller. The microcontroller controls the moving, navigation, drilling and seeding tasks of the Agribot.

Moreover, the programs written in python and running on the Raspberry pi make the automation a whole lot easier. Moreover, the integration of the main program on board with an android app lets the users control the robot remotely.

Final Deliverable of the Project HW/SW integrated systemType of Industry Agriculture Technologies RoboticsSustainable Development Goals Zero HungerRequired Resources

Item Name	Type	No. of Units	Per Unit Cost (in Rs)	Total (in Rs)
			Total in (Rs)	69600
DC motor	Equipment	5	4500	22500
Angle rods	Equipment	2	1700	3400
Bearing gears	Equipment	6	350	2100
Acrylic sheet	Equipment	1	2400	2400
Driving belt	Equipment	2	800	1600
12V Lead Acid Batteries	Equipment	2	6500	13000
Raspberry Pi and other electronics components	Equipment	1	10000	10000
Tyres	Equipment	4	3650	14600