Application of Robotics in Modern Agriculture

Agricultural robotics, commonly referred to as "agribots," have emerged as a transformative technology in modern farming practices. This research paper explores the evolution, applications, benefits, challenges, and future prospects of agricultural robotics. By examining various case studies and technological advancements, the paper highlights how these automated systems are revolutionizing the agricultural landscape, contributing to increased productivity, resource optimization, and sustainable farming practices.

2020

Over past few decades, the agriculture industry has faced new challenges. Previously, self-sufficiency in food and rural migration to cities were the significant concerns. With the advancement of science, more challenges now threaten this industry. Food security is a global concern. Governments worldwide are facing unprecedented rise in demand for food, human population is growing rapidly, but land and agriculture resources remain the same, and in some cases it’s even shrinking. The projected world's population to grow to more than 9.15 billion by 2050 (Kondo et al., 1996). Therefore, the challenge for the next decades will be to supply the needs of the expanding world population by developing a highly productive agriculture management, also at the same time preserving the quality of the environment (Rubens et al., 2010). Most of the developing countries including India facing agricultural labour shortage problem. A major portion of youths from village migrating to urban for led...

International Journal of Plant & Soil Science

Integration of advanced robotics in agriculture can exponentially boost productivity, alleviate labor shortages, reduce the environmental footprint, and increase the overall profitability of farming. Agricultural robots, often controlled by sophisticated algorithms and AI, offer precision farming capabilities that can enhance yield and quality, while minimizing waste and harmful impacts on the environment. They carry out numerous tasks such as sowing, watering, harvesting, and pest control, more efficiently than traditional methods. The usage of robotic systems enables 24/7 farming operations, overcoming the challenges posed by traditional human labor like working hours and physical exhaustion. The review also explores how this technology can help cater to the rising global food demand in a sustainable way, making it a promising solution to achieving food security in the face of increasing population pressures and climate change impacts. Despite the significant capital investment re...

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With a continuous increase of the world's population, it is estimated that by 2050 there will be 9 billion people inhabiting the planet earth. This doesn't come with any advantages, especially at the resource point of view. The two most evidenced problems that are associated with increasing population are water and food shortages. Unfortunately, these two are inseparable. The current global population is already facing these problems, especially in developing world, and with any more addition of the population we can only expect the worst. A reduction in land productivity due to degradation and the ever-reducing land for cultivation due to urbanisation is a major set back towards accomplishing food security goals. For the sake of the environment and social factors, we cannot continue using more chemicals and synthetic fertilizers that will eventually lead to more problems in future. Therefore, a more viable and sustainable solution has to be looked at in order to address these problems.

Journal of Eco-friendly Agriculture, 2022

Agricultural production system has witnessed drastic changes in the last few decades with advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence based technologies. Scarcity of labour during peak cropping season has also highlighted the need for an alternative option for safe and sustainable agricultural system using IoT, machine learning and robotics for carrying out agricultural operations. Augmented use of electronics and computer application has made the working of robotic system possible for various field operations viz. transplanting, harvesting, and interculture, etc. for agricultural as well as horticultural crops. These technologies can be integrated with vision based system and GPS for more precise application. Robotic transplanter for transplanting plug-type seedlings may be a good option for future agriculture. It can use robotic arm, manipulator and an end-effector to perform the operation by using computer vision and motion planning algorithm or an artificial intelligence system. The application of robotics will help in various field operations for movement, localization, capturing, targeting and moving to the next target using drones for addressing spatial as well as temporal management of crops. Same operation can be used in spraying, weeding as well as harvesting of fruits. However, the robotic technology seems to be at nascent stage and there is a need to adopt these technologies due to non-availability of labour and their higher wages and to ensure timeless in field operations. Although many research attempts have been made for development of robots for agriculture application, more research should be focused towards the development of next generation robots for difficult and labourious farm operations.

2020

Agriculture is the primary occupation of our country. With the technological advancement in all spheres, agriculture has also witnessed developments with the introduction of robotics and automation. Agricultural robot or "Agribot" is a robot used for agricultural purposes. The advent of robots in agriculture drastically increased the productivity and output of agriculture in several countries. Further, the usage of robots in agriculture reduced the operating costs and lead time of agriculture. The current paper reviews the various applications of robotic agriculture in different areas of agriculture. The work also throws light on the future scope of robotic agriculture.

Digital farming is the practice of modern technologies such as sensors, robotics, and data analysis for shifting from tedious operations to continuously automated processes. This paper reviews some of the latest achievements in agricultural robotics, specifically those that are used for autonomous weed control, field scouting, and harvesting. Object identification, task planning algorithms, digitalization and optimization of sensors are highlighted as some of the facing challenges in the context of digital farming. The concepts of multi-robots, human-robot collaboration, and environment reconstruction from aerial images and ground-based sensors for the creation of virtual farms were highlighted as some of the gateways of digital farming. It was shown that one of the trends and research focuses in agricultural field robotics is towards building a swarm of small scale robots and drones that collaborate together to optimize farming inputs and reveal denied or concealed information. For the case of robotic harvesting, an autonomous framework with several simple axis manipulators can be faster and more efficient than the currently adapted professional expensive manipulators. While robots are becoming the inseparable parts of the modern farms, our conclusion is that it is not realistic to expect an entirely automated farming system in the future.

2012

Precision Farming has shown benefits of this approach but we can now move towards a new generation of equipment. Mowing grass, spraying pesticides and monitoring crops for example, instead of regularly dousing an entire apple orchard with chemicals, towed sensors find diseases or parasites with infrared sensors and cameras, and spray only the affected trees. Commercial farms of the future may be staffed by robots that will identify, spray and pick individual pieces of produce from plants, even when their targets are grapes, peppers and apples that are as green as the leaves that surround them. Just as the mechanical reaper transformed the economics of cereal farming, a new wave of agricultural automation promises to do the same in other areas of horticulture. Because picking apples is very different to plucking strawberries, the machines are taking various forms.

Journal of Field Robotics, 2009

ABSTRACT As world population growth requires an increasing level of farm production at the same time that environmental preservation is a priority, the development of new agricultural tools and methods is required. In this framework, the development of robotic ...

Computer-based sensors and actuators such as worldwide positioning systems, appliance vision, and laser-based sensors have increasingly been incorporated into mobile robots with the aim of configuring independent systems capable of shifting operator activities in agricultural tasks. However, the incorporation of many electronic systems into a robot impairs its trustworthiness and increases its cost. Hardware minimization, as well as software minimization and ease of combination, is essential to obtain feasible robotic systems. A step forward in the application of mechanical equipment in agriculture is the use of fleets of robots, in which a number of expert robots collaborate to accomplish one or several rural tasks.