No abstract

Engineering technological especially on automation and mechanization in agricultural and plantation industry is still new and still under research and development. The application of computer, mechatronics and machines for agricultural production has been one of the outstanding developments in Malaysian agriculture. This paper describes on the recent research at Malaysian public university on the uses of computer and electronics towards machines for the agricultural operations. It has been generally agreed that industrial robotics do not provide sufficient information related to the bioproduction field, although some fundamental theories and technologies were applicable to the bioproduction machine. Agricultural products are diversified and complicated, the environment around the objects changes from time to time, and the machine mechanism should adapt to physical properties and cultivation methods of the biological objects. These are some of the considerations that agricultural mechanization needs to address. Current trend in agriculture is integration with biotechnology application, the demand of which may increase in conjunction with the land capabilities by variety humanity activities. Although adoption of one agriculture activity per house area is a viable strategy in the framework of food security, as in a general, an agricultural production is labour intensive. The agricultural landscape has seen an increase in adoption of modern technologies, be it in small scales, including those in the agro-based manufacturing sector. This, to some extent, has increased the productivity and at the same time decreased the labour dependency. In conclusion, studies on electronic and computer-assisted devices leading to automation for application in agriculture had to be perpetually carried out.