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Abstract. This project describes the design and development of a camera vision with color detection for the variable rate technology (VRT) automated sprayer. In this project, the smart sprayer system was already developed and mounted on the ATV. The automated sprayer system was developed by combination of the electromechanical system, PC parallel port relay board, the controller and visual basic programming software. This smart sprayer system is guided with the camera to detect the presence of weeds. Detection of weeds is based on the green color value from RGB value. The amount or percentage (%) of weeds detected determines the rate of spraying that is controlled by an electric motor and the relay board. In this project, the spray nozzles were modified to be fully open, fully closed and half open. The closing and opening of valves were controlled by the electromechanical system that receives the instruction from the camera vision. Experiments carried out shows that the nozzle is closed when the percentage of weeds detected is less than 2%. It is half open at 3% to 50% and fully open at more than 51%. The application rate of spraying can be determined from the result of the spraying operation.

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.

Dioscorea hispida (D.hispida) is a poisonous plant which their tuber contains toxic poison and can be consumed after the poison or dioscorine is removed. The tubers were peeled, sliced and soaked in flowing water (river) up to 7 days during traditionally detoxified process. Due to the traditional processing methods for removal of dioscorine is difficult to practice, we develop two types of equipment (wavy and spin) based on their water circulation operations. This project consisted the stages of design, fabricate and testing for the development of stand alone dioscorine removal equipment. Survival of Cyprinus carpio fish in slicing tuber of D.hispida extraction was used as a tool for detection of dioscorine removal. Results indicate that water circulation of spin operation was more effective compared to wavy type based on their capability of increasing pH activity and survival of fish as in D.hispida tuber during 6 hours of detoxified process. Therefore, this unique equipment can reduce the preparation time and also handling process of detoxified D.hispida thus making it to be more hygienic as compared to the traditional method in which river is used as a medium for dioscorine removal. The manual operation for water inlet and outlet for dioscorine removal system will replace for automatic operation by using On / Off solenoid valve while the Peripheral Interface Controller (PIC) is use for controlling input and output signal from sensor, solenoid valve and motor pump. Conceptually, the system will enhance with automatic timer which will pour out the dirty water and refill new water from inlet automatically.