International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395 -0056 Volume: 04 Issue: 05 | May -2017 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072 © 2017, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 5.181 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 1009 Design and Development of Agribot for Seeding Pavan T V 1 , Dr. R. Suresh 2 , Dr. K R Prakash 3 , Dr. C. Mallikarjuna 4 1 M.Tech. Student, Dept. Of Industrial Automation Engineering, VTU PG Studies, Mysuru, Karnataka, India 2 Professor, Dept. Of Industrial Automation Engineering, VTU PG Studies, Mysuru, Karnataka, India 3 Professor, Dept. Of Industrial Automation and Robotics, NIE, Mysuru, Karnataka, India 4 Associate Professor, Dept. Of Industrial Automation Engineering, VTU PG Studies, Mysuru, Karnataka, India ---------------------------------------------------------------------***--------------------------------------------------------------------- Abstract – 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. Key Words: Agriculture, Robotics, Seeding, Automation 1. INTRODUCTION Agriculture plays a very important role in India’s economy. The need for the automation in the field of agricultural sector is mainly due to the increased need of agricultural products due to increased population and shortage of labor in the agricultural sector. This paper is mainly concerned with the automation of a partial process involved in the agriculture. The traditional methods of seed sowing includes broad casting, putting seeds behind the plow, line sowing, transplanting, dribbling etc. The use of tractor is most common in the current agricultural trend. Before the seeding process is done it is necessary to properly mix the top layer of the soil with the fertile bottom layer of the soil which is usually done by the tractors or animal driven plough. This requires a lot of energy and human interaction. Due to the heavy weight of the tractors the soil will be compacted, the compacted soil will lose porosity and it becomes difficult for the seeds to germinate. The agricultural census gives vital information on the distribution of land holdings in our country. According to the census majority of the farmers are having the land less than 1 hectare [1]. This is one of the major drawbacks for the mechanization in agricultural sector in India. The machineries that are currently being used in the agricultural sector are very weather dependant [2]. These machineries use a lot of energy and require human labor to co-ordinate the process. In addition to that the costs of these kinds of machineries are high. Mechanization is nothing but use of tools and machineries that are helpful in agricultural processes. The mechanization of agriculture can be divided into two categories, one is the mobile type and another one is the stationary type [3]. The former aims at replacing the animal power and the latter aims at reducing certain operations that are performed either by human labor or by a combined effort of labor and animals. The mechanization of agriculture leads to the increased productivity to some extent however the human effort and the participation of human in the agricultural activity are not reduced. 1.2 Problem Statement The existing method of seed sowing process is associated with extensive human effort. In the traditional method of seed sowing process it is difficult to achieve uniform soil depth for seed placement and to obtain uniform distance between the seed placement. In addition to this the overall utilization of the field is less due to the low germination rate of the seeds as its difficult to achieve uniform cover of soil over the seed. The seeds will not germinate if the depth of the seeds placed is more. In order to overcome these limitation in the existing process, a robot is developed that can perform the seeding operation autonomously.