AUTOMATED SMART SOWING MACHINE
FOR PORT TRAYS
( AGRI ROBOT)
by
Ponnanna. K. M
Sanjay. G. R
Gowrima. K. J Shabareesh N
under the guidance of
Mr. C. S. Suresh Babu., M.Tech
Assistant Professor
DEPARTMENT OF INSTRUMENTATION TECHNOLOGY
MALNAD COLLEGE OF ENGINEERIN
HASSAN, KARNATAKA
1
Contents
Present Scenario
Polyhouse
Survey
Motivation
Objective
Methodology
Block Diagram
Flowchart
2-D sketch of Agri-Robot
Different configurations of Robot
Mechanical Fabrication
Agrirobot
Electronic Fabrication
Results
Analysis
Future Scope
References
2
Open field : Present scenario …
Low germination percentage leading to wastage of seeds.
Creation of gap due to non-germination of seeds.
Declination of total yield.
Scarcity of labour, demanding high wages.
Remedy : POLYHOUSE
3
Polyhouse
Meant for growing high valued agricultural crops
Protective shade made up of polythene.
Crops grown in port tray are protected from extreme climatic
conditions.
4
SURVEY
Cost of production (for 1 year) for 100 m2 polyhouse with hired
labour is as follows
Cost of labour = Rs. 6400.00
Cost of inputs
= Rs. 1500.00
Cost of structure = Rs. 3000.00
Total
= Rs. 10900.00
Gross income from cropping sequence is given as,
Tomato + Palak + Tomato + Cucumber = Rs. 19500
Some types of seeds being sown costs Rs.10,000 per gram.
In Hassan district, farmers grow vegetables with saplings
obtained from polyhouse.
Around 40 nursery units have been established.
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Motivation…
Drawbacks in manual seeding of PORT TRAYS
Increased time consumption
Production rate declines.
Laborer may put more than one
seed resulting in wastage of
precious seeds.
Remedy?
Automation of the process.
6
Global objective
To design a robot hand that picks and drops one seed in each
cup in the port tray to reduce the process time.
Secondary objective
To sense the presence of each port tray.
To punch a hole at the centre of soil filled cups.
To pick seeds from the seed-container and drop the same to
punched holes.
To develop a program to achieve horizontal and vertical
movements of the fabricated robot hand with the above two
tasks in precise manner.
7
METHODOLOGY
Implementation:
Input devices
Optical sensor:
To sense arrival of the port tray
Keypad: To key-in the no of trays.
Pause and Resume: To pause and resume the on-going
process at any instant of time.
Output devices
Stepper Motor SM1 to drive Assembly unit A.
Stepper Motor SM2 to drive Assembly unit B.
Stepper Motors SM3 and SM4 to drive the rear wheels.
Geared DC motor to drive picker unit .
Controller
Micro-controller AT89C51.
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BLOCK DIAGRAM
Stepper motor
to drive
Assembly B
Keypad
Stepper motor to
drive picker unit
Optical
Sensor
Pause and
Resume
Microcontroller
AT89C51
Stepper motors
to drive the
wheels
Geared DC motor
to drive punch
unit
SSD
9
Different configurations of Robot
Articulated
Cylindrical
Cartesian
Polar
SCARA- Simplified Compliance Assembly Robot Arm
Cartesian Form
10
MECHANICAL FABRICATION
Chassis
Foundation of the machine housing vacuum pump , control
unit, Assembly A, Assembly B , wheels, punch unit et al.
Dimension: 500*330*260mm.
Fabricated from 20mm hollow square pipe.
A set of optical sensors are mounted on either side of chassis
to sense the presence of port tray.
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Punch assembly
Dimensions : 300*65mm
Mounted in the front end of the
chassis.
Array of 7 punching pins punch holes
to a depth of 1cm.
Geared DC motor facilitates vertical movement of punching
array.
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Picker Unit
Suspended from Assembly B.
Consists of hollow pipe and
needles.
Hollow pipe has length of 280mm and diameter of 33mm, holding the
needles and suction unit’s inlet pipe.
Needles are 40mm long. Seven needles pick one seed at a time.
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Suction unit
Provides suction force for the picker unit to pick and hold a
seed.
It has the voltage rating of 230 Vac and 50 Hz, wattage of 800W.
The suction pressure created is 15680 pa.
Pressure switch
Dimension: 100*50*125mm
It consists of Geared DC motor with voltage rating of 8 Vdc and
current rating of 1A.
It facilitates to and fro movement of cork, during picking and
dropping of seeds.
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Assembly Unit A
It consists of stepper
motor SM1, screw rod S1,
guideways & free end bearing.
Dimension: 220*70*90mm
It facilitates precise movement of Assembly unit B
(picker unit) along X axis.
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Assembly Unit B
.
It consists of stepper motor SM2,
screw rod S2, guideways & free end bearing.
Dimension:108*60*170 mm.
It facilitates precise movement of picker unit
along Y axis.
It is suspended from the screw rod S1 of
assembly unit A.
Guideways support picker unit.
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Wheels
Front wheels are the free
wheels with diameter of
100mm, wheel base of 45mm.
Rear wheels, powered by
stepper motors, SM3 & SM4
have the diameter of 110mm.
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AGRIROBOT
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ELECTRONIC FABRICATION
Microcontroller and SCC unit:
AT89C51 controls various operations to be
performed by the Agrirobot in desired
sequence.
Comparator circuit is used for the tray
identification.
Timer circuit indicates various operation performed by the robot by
blinking LED.
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Interface unit
4 octal D flip-flop IC are used to receive the data from port 1
databus and send to SM1, SM2 and SSD driving circuits.
ULN2803 driver IC is used to drive the stepper motor SM2 and
SSD.
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Motor Driving Unit
The SL100 &TIP31C transistors are
used to form Darlington array to boost
the switching currents from
microcontroller to stepper motors up to
3A.
The set of 8 relays & DS882 transistor to
perform the switching of high current to
SM3 and SM4 to obtain the wheel
movement.
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Keypad unit
User interface unit.
4*3 matrix keypad facilitates the user
to enter the number of trays to be
sown.
Reset option enables the user to reset the entire control unit at once.
Pause and resume option enables the user to pause the robot at any
instant of operation and remain there until the robot is reinitiated.
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FLOWCHART
B
N
Y
N
N
A
Y
Display no of
trays entered
N
A
B
Y
A
Blink LED &
machine
movement
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2- dimensional sketch of robot
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Results
Optical sensor senses the presence of port tray successfully.
Number of trays to be sown was fed through keypad and displayed in
SSD successfully.
A hole of 1cm depth was punched successfully by punch unit.
Precise vertical and horizontal movement of picker unit, vertical
movement of punch unit and forward movement of Agri-Robot by 3.6
cm was achieved.
Picking and dropping of seeds were carried out efficiently.
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Analysis
Screw rod with pitch 1.5mm facilitated precise movement of
picker unit, assembly unit A and B.
This model demands calibration to maintain uniform differential
pressure.
Non-availability of efficient picking and placing of seeds demanded
picker needles with 0.5mm diameter.
Insufficient number of I/O ports of 8051 demanded multiplexing of
ports.
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How Does it solve the problem?
Comparative study of Cost of Production / year)for 100 m2 poly house:
Poly house with hired labor:
Cost of labor
= Rs. 6400.00
Cost of inputs = Rs. 1500.00
Cost of structure = Rs. 3000.00
Total
= Rs. 10900.00
Poly house with AGRI - ROBOT:
Cost of labor
=
Cost of inputs
=
Cost of structure
=
Cost for maintenance =
Total
=
Rs. 0000.00
Rs. 1500.00
Rs. 3000.00
Rs. 1500.00
Rs. 7000.00
Note: Approximated Cost of the designed Automated machine, AGRI –
ROBOT = Rs.10,000/It is an initial investment and avoids the cost of the labor in the
process..
The difference in cost of production is approximately Rs.4000.00/ crop.
Benefits to the industry:
On account of the advantages of Agri-robot, it can
become an admirable agriculture aid for the farmer; .
The high cost of labor and the increasing need for
assisted living has led to the development of the
service robotics market.
As Agri-robots are in greater proximity to humans, the
technology involves more safety concerns over humanmachine interaction. However, developments in the
manufacture of intelligent and safer robots are
expected to soon address the issues of safety,
manipulation, and sensing….
The market for higher quality products will be definitely
increased if the industries establish very high
standards agri-robot and promptness of delivery and
regularly canvas their customers for suggestions of
ways to improve their product and service .
Benefits to the society:
This automated system will be most essential
appliance for our society as India is the 2nd largest
producer of vegetable crops in the world.
The developed model avoids the wastage of precious
seeds as it is designed to pick and drop only one seed
at an instant, consequently it increases the percentage
of germination which leads to profit to the formers
who are the backbone of our nation.. As a result the
formers/society will be the beneficiaries.
The concept of Automation incorporated in the
intended system avoids the labors’ cost and reduces
the process time. Consequently it is cost effective.
Future scope
Cartesian form of robotic configuration has been employed in this work.
To achieve the precise wheel movement of 3.6am, wheel radius had to be a fractional
number, which posed constraint in fabrication of wheel.
Non-availability of stepper motor specifications posed constraints on torque requirement ,
voltage and current ratings.
Introduction of conveyer belt makes Agrirobot stationary, overcoming the problem of high
torque requirement.
Screw rod, bearings and couplings may be replaced by the
concept of hydraulics.
Wooden wheels can be replaced by castor wheels.
Audio unit could be introduced.
Water dripping unit could be included.
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References
Response of Vegetable Crops in a Solar Aided Polyhouse Ecosystem by
Er.R.Kavitha, Non-Member, Prof A Tajuddin, Fellow, Prof N.C.Vijayaraghavan,
Non-Member
Vegetable Production under Protected conditions in Neh Region- Problems and
Prospects by S.K.Sanwal, K.K.Patel and D.S.Yadav, Division of Horticulture,
ICAR.
Electronic Devices and Circuit Theory by Robert L.Boylestad and Louis
Nashelsky.
Operational Amplifiers and Linear Integrated Circuits by Robert F.Coughlin and
Fredrick F.Driscoll.
8051 Microcontroller and Embedded Systems by Mohammad Ali.Mazidi, Janice
Gillespie Mazidi.
Robot Mechanism and Mechanical devices by Paul E.Sandin.
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Thank you
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