Evaluation of navigation system of a robot designed for greenhouse spraying

Abstract

This research aims on the development of one efficient and feasible robotic vehicle for spraying inside a greenhouse and evaluation of its navigation system. The proposed system makes its movements by the left and right side motors, and the guidance was provided by ultrasonic sensors. A proportional control mechanism was implemented for continuous and real-time operations of the robotic unit. Such a system uses the 'range information' collected by sensors, so the unit can complete its movement between aisles. A u-shaped path with width and length of 0.98 m and 13.93 m, respectively, was selected for validation experiments. The greenhouse has a concrete floor; the unit was moved in three different speeds (7, 14, 21 m min −1). In general, the feasibility of the proposed robotic unit was approved, since it moved successfully in every required path. The RMSE of robotic unit movements' accuracy was placed between 5.22 and 6.38 at different speeds.

Greenhouse Robots: Ultimate Solutions to Improve Automation in Protected Cropping Systems—A Review

“…cerasiforme) are also mentioned in at least one paper [38][39][40]. The remaining 34% of publications [14,17,[41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52] do not specify which crop the robot is designed for, mostly because the study presented a generic software/hardware prototype, or the robot is designed for a generic supporting task (i.e., spraying or weeding), and has thus not been adapted for a specific crop. Therefore, the low adaptability of greenhouse robots to other production systems directs the results.…”

“…Most of the reviewed studies provide a minimum detail of the navigation and guidance systems adopted for the developed greenhouse robot, while a subset of studies particularly focuses on this issue [42,46,50]. The robot navigation system is different depending on project and application, but in most cases, a suite of various components (sensors and data collection devices) is integrated to evaluate the position and heading.…”

Digital Agriculture in Iran: Use Cases, Opportunities, and Challenges

“…The positioning system was the most important research on agricultural robots, especially greenhouse robots, and is still one of the most important issues related to greenhouse robotics in Iran. Greenhouse sprayers are another research field on the usage of greenhouse robots [41]. Maneuvering and controlling these bots has created a fundamental challenge in greenhouse robots.…”

Prototype of a watering autonomous mobile robot for mini greenhouse with manipulator and computer vision

“…The use of Li's proposed soil moisture sensor is also crucial for the irrigation function. Mosalanejad [4] presents a navigation system that includes ultrasonic sensors and proportional control mechanism. Ye [5] presents the concept of a deformable water mobile robot, which has the potential to be adapted for mini-greenhouses.…”