K. Singh, A.K. Awasthi, and R. Mishra (Eds.): QSHINE 2013, LNICST 115, pp. 309–324, 2013. © Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering 2013 RoboGardner: A Low-Cost System with Automatic Plant Identification Using Markers Reema Aswani and N. Hema Department of Computer Science Engineering Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida Uttar Pradesh, India reema_aswani@hotmail.com, hema.n@jiit.ac.in Abstract. In this modern era, automation is inevitable. With the fast paced and busy lifestyles, there is no time even for day to day household activities. There is a need of automation in each and every small activity performed by humans. In this paper we present an autonomous system that caters to the need of automation in gardening by providing a low cost, portable and efficient system for watering indoor potted plants at home and offices. The system comprises of a mobile ROBO equipped with a camera for auto-location and identification of the plants and a sensing circuitry for analyzing the watering needs. The RoboGardner is designed to ease out human workload and performs all the functions without any human intervention. It even provides an automatic feedback mechanism to inform the user about its daily performance. The water level of the RoboGardner’s on-board reservoir is also scrutinized automatically by it and the user is alarmed to refill when required. The paper outlines the complete architecture, functional modules and detailed implementation supported with the design circuits. It concludes with the system performance of the RoboGardner along with graphical analysis. Keywords: Marker Identification, Zigbee technology, Mobile Robot, Obstacle Avoidance, Temperature Humidity Sensor. 1 Introduction The presence of plants in our life is indispensible. As we know, plants add beauty to the environment, soothe the eyes, provide us oxygen and relieve stress preventing the rapidly growing diseases. Moreover, studies have consistently shown that by simply looking at environments with greenery like flowers and plants as compared to artificially created places lacking nature like rooms and buildings is significantly more effective in promoting recovery from stress [1] [2]. Research also suggests that by viewing places with plants or other nature for a few minutes can promote measurable restoration even in hospital patients who are acutely stressed. Studies in environmental psychology also depict that the physical benefits of contact with nature and greenery are vanishing in towns and cities due to the disengagement from the natural environment because of the fast paced and modern