Smart Farming Robot For Weeding Apllication
The aim of this project is to enhance the agriculture technology in the country betterment of crop yield. About 60% population of Pakistan rely on agriculture in the form of food or as a laborer. Nowadays, most of the developed countries are using latest technology to increase their agriculture prod
2025-06-28 16:35:21 - Adil Khan
Smart Farming Robot For Weeding Apllication
Project Area of Specialization Artificial IntelligenceProject SummaryThe aim of this project is to enhance the agriculture technology in the country betterment of crop yield. About 60% population of Pakistan rely on agriculture in the form of food or as a laborer. Nowadays, most of the developed countries are using latest technology to increase their agriculture production to meet the population’s food need. As Pakistan is a developing country so there is a need to develop or enhance our agricultural infrastructure to increase our production.
Agricultural engineering has become a technology field of highest worldwide relevance with Respect to food, energy as Well as landscape conservation. Electronics, communications, and sensor technologies are strongly pushing innovations in agriculture and have become key technologies in this Field, thereby offering options for economical as well as ecological benefits. The robotic technology improves different agriculture processes like weed control, cultivation, harvesting, spraying by using autonomous vehicles which increases speed, accuracy, and life. Future development steps are autonomous field robots with high technological challenges and options for economic and ecological benefits. The robustness of autonomous robots is of high relevance for a step from present research activities towards prototype. Precision agriculture is implemented with a goal to use sufficient treatments at the proper place within the right time with the aim to supply low-input, high efficiency, and production. Automation and robotics have become one of the main frameworks which focus on minimizing weed impact and simultaneously maximizing agricultural product.
The unwanted plants that grow in-between crops are called weeds. Weeds can be harmful for the crop in many ways such as it takes the space of actual crop and also a significant amount of nutrients and water. They also over-shadow the crop and stop or minimize the amount of sunlight and wind to reach the crop, which is the main cause of crops to be diseased. This project addresses the challenges of robotic weed control. It focuses on weed perception systems and robot locomotion. It will detect and classify weed plants by using Artificial Intelligence and Image processing. The herbicide is stored in a container fitted with pump attached to spray nozzles. Once the weeds are identified, a signal is sent from Raspberry-Pi to the motor driver IC controlling the pump to spray the chemicals over the weeds. Finally, an energy management system is implemented by using Solar panel and DC to DC converters for effective utilization of the robot battery.
Project ObjectivesTo design and develop a mechanical structure of a robot.
To develop an algorithm for autonomous motion of the robot
To develop an automatic weed detection system using Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing.
To design a mechanical structure for removal of the weeds
To design a photovoltaic system for powering purposes of the robot.
Firstly, the literature survey will be done after selecting the project.
Based on the literature review/survey, the overall analysis of appropriate sensor tools and components will be done by looking at the different alternatives and the best optimal solution.
After cost estimation and selecting the best alternative, the robot architecture will be selected which will include internal and external design of robot.
Furthermore, the hardware tools will be purchased
After that assembling will be done in step by step manner first mechanical structure of the robot and then joining of sensors etc.
After interfacing, algorithm development phase will start using different software and hardware tools. which will cover weed detection and robot locomotion
Synchronization of all components will be done after completion of software and hardware components.
Testing will start after completion of all aspects to check the proper functionality and to remove the bugs (if any).
There are various problems regarding the cultivated crops on the field, one of the most important of them is weed which act as a barrier in the growth of the crops. Weeds can deteriorate the life and the quality of the crops if not controlled properly in time. This proposed idea focuses on reducing the human labor as well as the time required to identify and remove the weeds.
At present these kinds of plants are being removed manually, wherever possible, or weedicides are being sprayed uniformly all over the field to keep them under check. In conventional weed control systems, herbicides are sprayed uniformly all over the field. This technique is very inefficient as only about 20% of the spray reaches the plant and less than 1% of the chemical contributes to weed control, leading to wastage, contamination of the environment and health problems in people. Though most herbicides are applied uniformly in fields, there is strong evidence that weeds are not distributed uniformly within crop fields. Many of these chemicals are soil-applied (preemergence) herbicides, which are more prone to movement into ground water and surface water supplies. Soil-applied herbicides such as atrazine and alcohol are potential threats to the safety of drinking water supplies. Public concerns about health risks associated with herbicide residues have increased as more cases of herbicide contaminated water supplies have been reported.
Moreover, the losses caused by weeds are as follow.
Weeds compete for water, nutrients & light. Being hardy & vigorous in growth habit, they soon outgrow the crops & consume large amounts of water & nutrients, thus causing heavy losses in yield. E.g.: 40% reduction in yield of groundnut & 66% reduction in yield of chili. The loss of N through weeds is about 150 kg/ha.
One of the objects of tillage is to control weed on which 30% expenditure is incurred and this may increase more in heavy infested areas & also cost on weed control by weeding or chemical control. Hence, reduce the margin of net profit.
Weed seeds get harvested & thrashed along the crop produce which lowers the quality. Such produce fetches fewer prices in the market. E.g.: Leafy vegetables, grain crop.
Heavily infested lands with perennial weeds fetch less price as require heavy expenditure to brought under cultivation.
Weeds either give shelter to various insect pests and disease pathogens or serve as alternate hosts and thus helps in perpetuating the menace from pests and diseases. E.g.: Gall fly of paddy, midge fly of Jowar, leaf minor of soybean & Groundnut, rust of Wheat, tikka of Groundnut, Black rust of wheat.
The precision herbicide application technologies that are we developing will significantly increase farm sustainability and reduce herbicide threats to the environment.
Periodic crop monitoring is an extensive task for farmers. They have to visit their fields to see the progress of growth and possibilities of weed growth in the crop. However, it is usually not possible to go deep in the field and farmers must stay outside the field and evaluate the boundary plants. Our proposed solution is to develop a robotic solution that can periodically monitor the crop and alert the actuator immediately on detection of any traces of weeds in the crop. This will enable the robot to promptly act against the weed. Such a robot would need onboard sensors which will inspect the weed growth. The robot will be able to autonomously maneuver over the crop area without damaging the crop. There will be constant communication with the actuator to alert it of any potential threat to the crop. The first and foremost step will be to collect dataset from different agricultural farms. The dataset will consist of images of various crops at different stages of development. It will also include images of weeds and their growth stages. For this purpose, a camera will be mounted on the upfront section of mechanical structure of robot. The data will be collected from actual fields so that the development can be demonstrated in real life scenario. The crop inspection will be carried out using RGB camera. Various image processing algorithms will be developed to detect diseases and weeds in the crop. After weed detection weeding will be performed using autonomous ground vehicles. The camera is connected to the actuators which receives frames of images and the processing is carried out in the software. Subsequent to handling the weed, raspberry pi will send the command to the pump of synthetic substances(chemical) which will thus shower chemical on the weed through chemical spraying nozzle.
Final Deliverable of the Project HW/SW integrated systemCore Industry AgricultureOther Industries IT , Food , Energy , Manufacturing Core Technology Artificial Intelligence(AI)Other Technologies Robotics, NeuroTechSustainable Development Goals Good Health and Well-Being for People, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, Sustainable Cities and CommunitiesRequired Resources| Item Name | Type | No. of Units | Per Unit Cost (in Rs) | Total (in Rs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total in (Rs) | 77750 | |||
| Spraying application(motor driver) | Equipment | 2 | 300 | 600 |
| Spraying application(DC pump motor)( | Equipment | 2 | 1000 | 2000 |
| Locomotion(High torque DC gear motor) | Equipment | 2 | 4000 | 8000 |
| Locomotion(Sonar sensor for safety features) | Equipment | 1 | 1000 | 1000 |
| Locomotion(Stepper Motor) | Equipment | 2 | 1200 | 2400 |
| Locomotion(Motor drivers) | Equipment | 4 | 1500 | 6000 |
| Mechanical Structure(Front axel) | Equipment | 1 | 2000 | 2000 |
| Mechanical Structure(Rear Axel) | Equipment | 1 | 1100 | 1100 |
| Mechanical Structure(Hub) | Equipment | 4 | 500 | 2000 |
| Mechanical Structure(Rim)) | Equipment | 4 | 1500 | 6000 |
| Mechanical Structure(tubes)) | Equipment | 4 | 250 | 1000 |
| Mechanical Structure(tyres) | Equipment | 4 | 1200 | 4800 |
| Mechanical Structure(bearings)) | Equipment | 4 | 200 | 800 |
| Overall mechanical Structure of frame | Equipment | 1 | 7000 | 7000 |
| Solar panels | Equipment | 2 | 1200 | 2400 |
| Battery | Equipment | 1 | 3500 | 3500 |
| Raspberry pi +cam | Equipment | 1 | 17000 | 17000 |
| Wirring | Equipment | 1 | 500 | 500 |
| Site visit kalar-kahar expense | Miscellaneous | 1 | 6800 | 6800 |
| Site visit kasur | Miscellaneous | 1 | 2850 | 2850 |