2. Literature Review
This section of the study discourses the different researches and works related to the cultivation of plants using Computer Numerical Control machine and hydroponics technique, as well as the devices and instrumentations used for the automation of soil-less culture.
The first thing you need to consider when dealing with hydroponics is the sunlight. If you don’t have enough sunlight you can make your own sunlight using grow lights or simply
LEDs. The lumens measurements of high power LEDs do not give you an accurate estimation of how many you need since LEDs have a highly centered light spectrum that is more accurately measure in micro Einsteins. In this case an empirical measurement of 5, 3W high power LEDs for each plant you wish to grow and 1 blue for every 10 red LEDs.
According to Vaibhav Palande et al. in their published article growing plants and vegetables in remote areas such as deserts and the North and South Pole can be a challenge because of the extreme weather. Also according to the article of Nga T. Nguyen et al. the use of hydroponic growth system is most advantageous in situations where the nutrient media need to be well controlled and when intact roots need to be harvested for downstream applications. And they stated that hydroponics offers several advantages over soil-based systems. When removed from soil, root tissue is often mechanically sheared causing loss of tissue or damage. Hydroponics systems that do not utilize an inert particulate media allow a less invasive separation of root and shoot tissue.
Substrates or growing media is defined as solid materials other than soil, which can be in the form of mixtures or alone, these media should guarantee better rooting conditions and provide anchorage for the root system, water supply and nutrients to plants and suitable aeration environment to roots. A wide selection of growing media is available and the choice depends on grower’s financial and technical implications. (Gruda et al. 2013)
Jessica Aira P. Sasam et al. said in their research that one can grow several earthbound plants via hydroponics. Some of the plants which can be grown are lettuce, pechay,

cabbage, mustard, some herbs and flowering plants which only required a small amount of space. Pechay, also known as Brassica Rapa is a leafy, shallow-rooted, cool-season crop but can stand higher temperatures given it is exposed to enough moisture. Growth of this plant is satisfactory given that its growing medium contains sufficient nitrogen and potassium. From pechay Research Technology (2005) in about six to eight weeks pechay are mature and ready to harvest. According to Condor Seeds Production (2007) a fast growing non-heading variety that produces clusters of 8 to 12 crisp white stalks with largely nearly round smooth glossy green leaves. It has a pleasant mildly pungent taste. Also, it is a hardly cool weather plant with relative maturity of 45 to 60 days.
A study of hydroponics in the Philippines was conducted at the University of The
Philippines (Los Baños) and is headed by Dr. Primitivo Jose A. Santos and Eureka Teresa M.
Ocampo. In their article published at the Philippine Journal of Crop Science last 2005; they emphasized the possible solution to the yearly losses in vegetable production. And they stated that hydroponics is the most popular and acceptable solution for plant productions that are limited to soil unavailability and space restrictions. In line with this, they developed a set of nutrient solutions and named it Simple Nutrient Addition Program or SNAP Solution. The
SNAP hydroponics is of success because the research was funded by the Department of
Agriculture under the Bureau of Agricultural Research section. These set of solutions are adapted to the study presented in this paper and are used as the main source of nutrients of the Romaine lettuce. Also, the said article above serves as the main reference of the nutrient solutions used and the weekly cycle of these solutions to be replenished for the completion of this research
Another research was conducted by Angelita J. Prado and Lilia O. Sampaga last 2013 pechay (Brassica Rapa) is a popular vegetable in the Philippines. Ideally, it is eaten raw to prevent possible loss of its nutritional value when heated. Leif Marvin R. Gonzales, Ramonita
A. Caralde and Malta L. Aban (2015) said growing vegetables has been a practice for centuries in civilized countries. Also, vegetables are very important food commodity, aside from playing a major role in meeting our vitamin, mineral and protein requirements, they also serve as a reliable source of income of farmers. Pechay is also known as the oldest green vegetables in Asia. Therefore, it plays an important role in the Philippine economy as well as

in the nutrition of the Filipino people. Pechay is used mainly for its immature, but fully expanded tender leaves.
Coco peat is a suitable growing media with acceptable physical and chemical attributes such as pH, electrical conductivity, bulk density and others (Abad et al. 2002).
However coco peat has a very high water holding capacity which causes poor aeration in the root zone. This will later affect the oxygen diffusion to the roots. Depending on the handling and processing technique, the physical properties of coco peat can easily affect the air capacity and water retention (Abad et al. 2002).
In tropical and subtropical area, coir which is a natural fiber material extracted from coconut husk are most popular. This coconut husk contains fibrous material known as coir that contains thick mesocarp of the coconut fruit (Meerow 1997). From the coconut husk, long fibers of coir are extracted and used for manufacturing products like brushes, mattress stuffing and seats. The process of extracting long coir fiber will leave behind waste product namely short coir fiber and dust.
Use of soilless media has been shown by various researchers to be effective in terms of production quantity and quality of flowers and edible crops (Ghehsareh et al., 2011; Ahmad et al., 2012). A study to investigate the comparative effect of different potting media on vegetative and reproductive growth of Antirrhinum majus L. was undertaken in Faisalabad
Pakistan. Results showed that plants grown using peat moss containing silt and top soil in the ratio of 1:1:1 showed positive results for vegetative and reproductive growth compared to the control which was silt and top soil (Mehmood et al., 2013).
Today, computer numerical control (CNC) machines are found almost everywhere, from small job shops to large companies in urban areas. CNC machines were the first major break-through in the field of rapid-prototyping. Before the numerical control and computer numerical control, parts had to be machined by of error in end prototype products and even more so if/when machines were manually used for large scale manufacturing. CNC machine commonly combine tools into common units or cells from which the machine can draw. Basic
CNC machines move in one or two axes while advanced machines move laterally in the x, y axis, longitudinally in the z axis, and often times rotationally about one or more axes.

Agriculture is one of the oldest forms of occupation. The use of tools and livestock in the agricultural process has reduced the human effort. Major factors that affect agriculture include less holding area, shortage of seeds, fertilizers and labor and uncertainty of monsoon.
The mechanization of agriculture refers to the use of tools or machines in the agricultural process that potentially reduces the human effort. Although it reduces the human effort in the agricultural process, it requires complete human interaction. The automation and robotics application in the branch of agriculture is at the booming stage when compared to its wide range of application in other sectors. Many researches have been done in this field to automate the process. In the present paper an effort is made for the design and development of the robot that can perform seeding process without any human intervention. The robot developed is capable of making a hole in the soil up to certain depth, placing the seed accurately in the same hole and closing the mud. The process is controlled by a microcontroller. The robot developed overcomes the drawbacks in the traditional method of seeding which includes wastage of seeds, high labor wage, lower utilization of land etc. By the application of automation and robotics in the field of agriculture it is possible to increase the overall efficiency of the agricultural process and can mitigate effects of labor shortage. (Suresh, 2017)
Many countries in Asia including India are agrarian economies and most of their rural populations depend on agriculture to earn their livelihood. Aimed at increasing the productivity and reducing the labor involved, this robot designed to execute the basic functions required to be carried out in farms. All kinds of agricultural robots have been researched and developed to implement a number of agricultural products in many countries.
This Agribot can performs basic elementary functions like ploughing, planting and spray the pesticides. The application of agricultural machinery in precision agriculture has experienced an increase in investment. The robot starts its function by ploughing of soil followed by sowing of seeds and ends the process by spraying of pesticides. It uses basic components like
DC motors, servo motor, relay, solenoid valve and Arduino as the main controller. The mechanical design of the robot is also simple. It is programmed to carry out the above functions simultaneously. To perform the function of ploughing it is equipped with spiked wheels which are fixed in the anterior end of the robot, to sow seeds it has a container with

seeds and its bottom contains a perforation to drop the seed and finally the posterior end of the robot has a sprayer equipped with solenoid valve which is controlled by a relay. Precision autonomous farming is the operation, guidance, and control of autonomous machines to carry out agricultural tasks. It motivates agricultural robotics. The goal of agricultural robotics is more than just the application of robotics technologies to agriculture ( Prakash, 2018)
The software portion of a CNC system must consist at least of three major programs: a part program, a service program, and a control program. The part program contains the geometry description of the part being produced and the cutting conditions such as spindle speed and feedrate. Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) software can be used to generate this part program. The service program is used to check, edit, and correct the part program. It usually has a user interface that allows the user to operate the machine easily. The control program accepts the part program as input data and produces signals to drive the axes of motion. It performs interpolation, feedrate control, acceleration and deceleration, and position counters showing the current axes position (Qin, 2013).