Design and Development of Autonomous Pesticide Sprayer Robot for Fertigation Farm

A M Kassim,F A,H.I Jaafar,S Sivarao,M S,M F,A K,A H

doi:10.14569/ijacsa.2020.0110269

Abstract

The management of pest insects is the critical component of agricultural production especially in the fertigation based farm. Although the fertigation farm in Malaysia has advantages in the fertilization and irrigation management system, it still lacking with the pest management system. Since almost the insect and pests are living under the crop’s leaves, it is difficult and hard labor work to spray under the leaves of the crop. Almost agricultural plants are damaged, weakened, or killed by insect pests especially. These results in reduced yields, lowered quality, and damaged plants or plant products that cannot be sold. Even after harvest, insects continue their damage in stored or processed products. Therefore, the aim of this study is to design and develop an autonomous pesticide sprayer for the chili fertigation system. Then, this study intends to implement a flexible sprayer arm to spray the pesticide under the crop’s leaves, respectively. This study involves the development of unmanned pesticide sprayer that can be mobilized autonomously. It is because the pesticide is a hazardous component that can be affected human health in the future if it exposed during manual spraying method especially in a closed area such as in the greenhouse. The flexible sprayer boom also can be flexibly controlled in the greenhouse and outdoor environment such as open space farms. It is expected to have a successful pesticide management system in the fertigation based farm by using the autonomous pesticide sprayer robot. Besides, the proposed autonomous pesticide sprayer also can be used for various types of crops such as rockmelon, tomato, papaya. pineapples, vegetables and etc.

Highlights

The agriculture industry is growing from time to time as the demand on its yield abruptly rising in conjunction by the end of 2050, the agriculture yields are expected to be able to support the rapid population growth
Pests such as mites, snails, and maggots are a common type of pest that can be found in this farm by making the plants as their source of food and breeding ground
As shown in Fig. 13. the starting point for the autonomous pesticide sprayer robot started at 3000 cm from the end of the junction

Summary

Introduction

The agriculture industry is growing from time to time as the demand on its yield abruptly rising in conjunction by the end of 2050, the agriculture yields are expected to be able to support the rapid population growth. From this forecast, the dependency on the agriculture yields to meet the population growth is a concern because the world population is expected to grow by over a third, or 2.5 billion people, between 2009 and 2050 [1]. Pests such as mites, snails, and maggots are a common type of pest that can be found in this farm by making the plants as their source of food and breeding ground In this case, pest invasion is an unavoidable circumstance but can be controlled by having pesticide spraying periodically. Based on the studies conducted The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates approximately about 3 million cases regarding pesticide poisoning which happened every year, causing the death of 220,000 people who especially live in developing countries [3]

Objectives

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Results

Conclusion