Agricultural Robot for automatic ploughing and seeding

Abstract

This paper strives to develop a robot capable of performing operations like automatic ploughing, seed dispensing, fruit picking 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 AVR At mega 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. The field is fitted with humidity sensors placed at various spots that continuously monitor the environment for humidity levels. It checks these levels with the set point for humidity and alerts the farmer. The alerting mechanism is GSM module that sends a text message to the farmer informing him about the breach in set point. The farmer then responds via SMS to either switch on the water sprinklers or ignore the alert. The water sprinklers, if on, bring down the humidity level thus providing an ideal growing environment to crop. The concept of fruit picking and pesticide spraying is described under the process domain. Farmers today spend a lot of money on machines that help them decrease labor and increase yield of crops but the profit and efficiency are very less. Hence automation is the ideal solution to overcome all the shortcomings by creating machines that perform one operations and automating it to increase yield on a large scale.