eChapters

The development of the civilisation humans have tried to domesticate the animals. Initially dogs were known to be the first pet domesticated by humans followed by the domestication of other animals like cattle, horses, sheep etc.

14.1 Introduction

When humans started to domesticate the animal, they have tried several ways to control them. Generally these animals are released in free space to graze and one of the known problems is to prevent them from overgrazing. So building a fence is one of the ways to limit their movement is one viable solution, but building a fence is limited to a smaller area. Since these animals are locked in a large number, so building a bigger fence and moving it every time for grazing is not viable. It can be observed in the history of humankind as that civilisation progressed the use of Shepherd dogs has been one of the widely accepted. Shepherd dogs not only help in shepherding and herding but also prevents these livestock from wolves

The incorporation of robotics will not only automate the process intelligently but also keep a vigil on various aspects of livestock management. In recent years there has been a substantial development in this regard. The development of robotic dogs for shepherding and herding purposes has found a lot of increment developments. SPOT developed by Boston dynamics and SwagBot developed by University of Sydney, are well-known robots developed in recent times for the purpose.

These robots are equipped with multiple sensors like LiDAR, gas and heat sensors, high-resolution cameras etc. The array of sensors are used to capture the data in real-time and is then used for decision-making processes. Also these reports are built to be rugged and can navigate on a variety of terrains.

Harvesting is one of the most labour intensive jobs in agriculture, and by implying the robotics in harvesting, the quantity of the harvested yield can be readily increased, thus saving a lot of time and human resources. This also aids in reducing the farm to market transportation times. The use of robotics can also reduce the seasonal requirement of the manual labour and thus reduce the recurring costs.

13.1 Introduction

The incorporation of robotics in agriculture has proved to be advantages for the farmers and thus for the economy. The automation of various agricultural processes led to the reduction of the operational costs and also in the reduction of the labour required. A possible solution to address the problems of labour availability and scaling up the harvesting of the crop is the incorporation of robotics.

To cater the increased demand of food, it will be required that farmers are equipped with tools and methods to improve their yields and make informed decisions [1]. Also, with the increase in population, the agricultural land is decreasing by 1 lakh hectares per year and it is required to double the agricultural produce in the next 30 years to sustain the global food requirements.

The improvements in various technological fields like machine learning, navigation, robotics etc. and their applications in agriculture is required to meet this increasing need. One of the factors is to make the farmland ready for sowing the crops, spraying, etc. and this has to be done in a precise and faster manner to address the latter issues. So, the uses of autonomous tractors for such jobs offer accurate, precise and timely preparation of the fields for the cultivation.

12.1 Introduction

Autonomous tractors or driverless tractors are unmanned ground vehicles mainly employed in agriculture for various purpose like preparation of land for the crops, harvesting, spraying, and other agricultural purposes. They are equipped with GPS, autopilot, cameras, lasers (LiDAR), and other wireless technologies navigation and mutual coordination and offer saving of both the manpower and time. These autonomous tractors can be programmed to navigate their paths through the fields and are designed to avoid the obstacles while doing their jobs. These tractors automate various laborious field jobs and also minimize human intervention in the process.

These autonomous machines are regarded to revolutionize the agriculture industry and offer safety, sharing of resources, economical solutions per square area of land, etc. Several industries like Jhon Dheere, AgraBots, EcoRobotix, RowBot, etc.

In the wild (forests) plants grow by their own, but in agriculture because of limited space they don’t have freedom to grow in a much natural way. This can lead to structural irregularities in their growth, and can hamper the overall plant’s development and this will impact the produce or crop yield. To deal with such constraints and to boost the crop production, the methods of thinning and pruning provide efficient ways to train the growth of young plants and maintain the health of grown-up plants.

11.1 Introduction

In agriculture, thinning means the removal of some plants or some parts of plants that show inconsistent growth and or are damaged by some pest or disease, without removing the whole tree or plant. The selective removal of branches, buds or roots is termed as pruning [1]. If the plants are overcrowded in a confined space, the overall health of the crop decreases due to the competitive stress from the neighbouring plants. Thinning and pruning is done to improve the growth rate or health of the plants by decreasing the competitive stress. Thinning and pruning in agriculture is the sensible removal of plant parts such as flowers, shoots, its branches or other parts to correct or maintain that structure of the tree and control be directed growth of the crop. This practice covers the precise removal of the unhealthy and obstructive part of the plant branch, leaves, fruits, buds, fruits, etc. Pruning improves the quality and longevity of the crop, leading to quality produce and increased yield of the field. This also helps in increasing the size of the fruit as it increases the availability of nitrogen required for growing and stimulating growth of the crop. There are several factors that influence the amount of pruning to be done, i.e., age of the plant, condition of the bark and wood, growth characteristics, whether cup crop/plantation is permanent or seasonal [2]. Pruning is done for controlling the size of the plant, controlling the structure makeup of the plant, controlling and improving the light distribution of the plants by the selective removal of leaves to improve the quality of the fruits, removing the diseased parts of the plant and to regulate the fruit crop and increase the life of the tree.

The principle behind thinning and pruning is to admit more sunlight to the branches that bear fruit by the selective removal of the unproductive branches which obstruct the sunlight to fall on the productive branches to increase the productivity white and vitality of the plant to obtain optimum healed of good quality crop [3]. Young trees are pruned so that they acquire the desired shape. In old trees it is done to stimulate flowering. In plants bearing fruits or crops, pruning is done to allow adequate sunlight to fall on fruit bearing branches, so that quality crop is produced. Very old plants heavy pruning is done to restore the vigour of the plant. It is also done so that the loss of nutrients being shared by the diseased peak or shading branches is reduced. The use of robotics and other automated systems can aid in the precise pruning and thinning of the crop. This will also automate the whole process and will save their requirement on the extensive manpower which ultimately saves time.

In the wild (forests) plants grow by their own, but in agriculture because of limited space they don’t have freedom to grow in a much natural way. This can lead to structural irregularities in their growth, and can hamper the overall plant’s development and this will impact the produce or crop yield. To deal with such constraints and to boost the crop production, the methods of thinning and pruning provide efficient ways to train the growth of young plants and maintain the health of grown-up plants.

11.1 Introduction

In agriculture, thinning means the removal of some plants or some parts of plants that show inconsistent growth and or are damaged by some pest or disease, without removing the whole tree or plant. The selective removal of branches, buds or roots is termed as pruning [1]. If the plants are overcrowded in a confined space, the overall health of the crop decreases due to the competitive stress from the neighbouring plants. Thinning and pruning is done to improve the growth rate or health of the plants by decreasing the competitive stress. Thinning and pruning in agriculture is the sensible removal of plant parts such as flowers, shoots, its branches or other parts to correct or maintain that structure of the tree and control be directed growth of the crop. This practice covers the precise removal of the unhealthy and obstructive part of the plant branch, leaves, fruits, buds, fruits, etc. Pruning improves the quality and longevity of the crop, leading to quality produce and increased yield of the field. This also helps in increasing the size of the fruit as it increases the availability of nitrogen required for growing and stimulating growth of the crop. There are several factors that influence the amount of pruning to be done, i.e., age of the plant, condition of the bark and wood, growth characteristics, whether cup crop/plantation is permanent or seasonal [2]. Pruning is done for controlling the size of the plant, controlling the structure makeup of the plant, controlling and improving the light distribution of the plants by the selective removal of leaves to improve the quality of the fruits, removing the diseased parts of the plant and to regulate the fruit crop and increase the life of the tree.

Weed control in agriculture disturbs the farming. Weed management and control essentially increase productivity of the farm. Autonomous robots for weed control systems are gaining a lot of attention. Adaptability of effective weed control robots has the potential to bring evolution in the areas of weed species, genetics and climate conditions. Weed control is one of the major challenges in agriculture. Removal of weeds from farming land required a lot of human effort. To minimize the weed growth pesticides and chemicals are used which is very harmful. In order to make this process easy and reliable robots are used nowadays. Robots are specially designed to detect the weeds and remove them within a stipulated time period. Robots are programmed using various algorithms to do this task in an efficient way without human efforts. This chapter illustrates the use of modern robots in weed control to help the farmers to gain maximum profit and healthy concerns without using chemicals to do so.

10.1 Introduction

Over the time, weed control in a farming land has been an issue. Evolution in technologies in the area of agriculture brought a lot of innovations. Among these robots are one of the innovations to be implemented in agriculture to enhance profitability and reliability with minimum human resource. The robots are deployed to monitor the farming land from weeds and try to remove these. Due to which uses of agrochemicals reduced down the timeline. When precision farming came into the picture robots are the best use cases. An autonomous mechanical robot was used to remove the weed from farming land. Robots are equipped with sensor modules, actuators and IoT enabled which makes the things very easy to control from remote area with commands [4].

Agriculture irrigation is a crucial part of precision farming. An irrigation system required a lot concentration to grow the plant healthy. A smart irrigation system in an agriculture farm leads to maximum profits in terms of yield. Integrating technologies like IoT (Internet of Things), AI (Artificial Intelligence) in irrigation accomplish to the human efforts. Controlling of water pumps, sprinklers seamlessly draws the kind attention of farmer to adapt these technologies in their day today farming schedules. This chapter illustrates a wide variety of robots used in irrigation to achieve maximum yield and minimizing water loss. The high scalability and reliabilities of these autonomous robots replicates the potential of agriculture 4.0 in coming future. Advanced robots deployed on the field to monitor the land and pass the information to the controllers and further to the water pumps. Here case study of robots is highlighted to reduce water losses by using nozzles mechanisms.

9.1 Introduction

Agriculture faces many environmental challenges. As far as the irrigation in agriculture is concerned it is very essential to maintain soil hydrated and water level in the field. Robotic irrigation enables autonomous irrigation from remote access [3]. Smart irrigation technique enables a lot of water saving. So robotic in agriculture plays a very crucial role in it [2]. In order to avoid water losses agro robots adapt smart irrigation techniques like droplet irrigation and sprinkling. To maintain sustainability, water resource management is required. Technologies like drones, smart sprinkler based on IoT, smart droplet irrigation used across the globe. These technologies have the greatest impact on productivity and sustainability of the environment as well. As far as the country India is concerned, due to diversity in geographical infrastructures rainfall changes from state to states. So, a wide range of water diversity is found to grow agricultural foods. For example northeast and southern part of India due to heavy rainfall paddy cultivation is preferred since it requires a lot of water. Whereas the northern part of India observe a moderate rainfall, so vegetables and other agriculture foods get cultivated. At the same there are certain states like Rajsthan, Gujrat where very less rainfall occurs through varieties of crops related to dal.

Precision Agriculture is fulfilled by adapting suitable monitoring and analysis mechanisms. Autonomous monitoring is getting a new dimension using robots. Agriculture is the trending area to attract new professionals, investors and new companies. The technology in agriculture is not only increasing the yields but the time and labour. This chapter illustrates the use of robotics in crop monitoring and analysis.

8.1 Introduction

Monitoring of agriculture farm enhance the productivity. Evolution in technologies in the era of agriculture brought a lot of innovations. Among these innovations robots are one of them to be implemented in agriculture to enhance profitability and reliability with minimum human resource. At the same robots were deployed to monitor the farming land from weeds and try to remove these. Due to which uses of agrochemicals reduced down the time line. When precision farming came in to the pictures robots are the best use cases. In fig. 8.1 autonomous mechanical robots are shown, which are used to remove the weed from farming land. Robots are equipped with sensor modules, actuators and IoT enabled which makes the things very easy to control from remote area with commands.

Agriculture is the backbone of India. Evolution in technology is bringing new dimensions of conventional agriculture. Looking towards the current food demands it is very crucial to maintain the food supply. According to UN (United Nations), by 2050 the world population will be increased to around 9.3 billion which increases the food need. As the technology in agriculture evolving it seems that we could be able transform conventional farming to unconventional and traditional to modernization by the help of agriculture robots. Agri-bots can be autonomous with human intervention that could perform the task precisely. Chapter illustrates the applications in agriculture seeding. These robots are efficiently used in crop seeding.

7.1 Introduction

The very first agriculture robots were used in the early 1920s along with autonomous vehicle development.

Agro robots are becoming an ongoing pattern in farming with lots of research advancement and business models [1]. Agrarian robots have huge focal points as far as adaptability, flexibility and ecological advantages contrasted with customary horticultural apparatus and speak to an extraordinary resource for cutting edge precision agribusiness. Numerous advances in machine vision with imaging and otherworldly cam-periods for distinguishing weeds, vermin and infections, supplement inadequacies in soil or plant leaves have given profound applications to be mounted on independent vehicles for exploring soil and crops and for additional downstream choice help and control [2]. The mechanical network has additionally made earth shattering upgrades and advancements as far as utilizing a far reaching working framework, the Robotic Operating System (ROS), just as applying strong stages and route calculations.

Comparable to horticultural robots, the attributes of the central framework of robots are the lightweight, little size and lively self-governance [3]. Lightweight implies that the vehicle requires lower impetus vitality and incites less soil compaction while simultaneously the vehicle must be little for security reasons, for accomplishing more noteworthy accuracy during execution of assignments and having more maneuverability inside the field to limit turning delays.

Robots can replace human efforts in the future. Discovery of robots in agriculture is going to accelerate the growth of agriculture 4.0. Nursery planting needs robust and profitable solutions. Nursery plants deals with the direct consumer, which is the primary stage of agriculture. An intensive care is required to look after the nursery plant before going to be planted. Now a days robots are used to monitor the plants, essentially to maintain the health standard of a plant. This chapter illustrate the applications of the robots in nursery planting.

6.1 Introduction

Nursery is the primary stage where seeds are grown in to the young plants. Nursery planting involves many activities like seeding, potting and monitoring. The process required high attention to look after at this stage [1]. As the food demand is increasing day by day, it is necessary to adapt unconventional way of farming. Bringing robots in to the farming will bring a lot of changes in the traditional agriculture. The robotics in agriculture is not new, it has started with evolution of autonomous vehicles [2]. The usage of robots are increasing exponentially. So the researcher and scientist also started use of robots in agriculture. They found a phenomenal result in term of easy to handle the agro tasks, seeding, weeding, automatic irrigation and harvesting. It draws the farmer attention down the line [3].

The communication module is a device which is used to control the communication between the stations. This chapter explores the different communication modules and their specifications.

5.1 WiFi

ESP8266 WiFi Module is a WiFi serial transceiver module. This chip has a full TCP/IP protocol stack with the computational power onboard. This makes the board simple to use as Wi-Fi connection board. The specification of this board includes, 32-pin QFN package, Integrated RF switch, Integrated RISC processor. It has on-chip memory with external memory interfaces, integrated MAC/baseband processors, Quality of Service management, on chip regulator, Integrated WEP, TKIP, AES, and WAPI engines, 11 b/g/n. It has integrated TCP/IP protocol stack and Integrated PLLs, regulators, DCXO and power management units. It has +19.5dBm output power in 802.11b mode and Power down leakage current of <10uA

5.2 Bluetooth

Bluetooth is a wireless protocol. The recent introduction of Bluetooth with Low Energy extension is also as iBeacon. The advantage of BLE4.0 standard includes the low power consumption, which makes it a better option to be used in smart phones. This facilitates the setup of a mesh network of Bluetooth devices, with lower latency and higher range respect to standard Bluetooth.

This is a SMD BLE module based on TI cc2541 chip. It has low cost, small and easy to use. The preloaded firmware allows to build BLE communications with AT command. It supports communication with iPhone, iPad (iOS 5.0 or greater) and Android 4.3 or greater. It works on frequency: 2.4 GHz ISM band and modulation method is GFSK (Gaussian Frequency Shift Keying). It has transmission power: - DBM, 23-6 DBM, 0 DBM, 6 DBM, can be modified by the AT command. It works on baud rate 9600bps. It can operate on temperature range -40 ~ 125°C.

Another interesting board is the HC-05 Bluetooth module. Specifications of the works Master/Slave configurations. It operates on frequency of 2.4GHz ISM band with Modulation GFSK(Gaussian Frequency Shift Keying).

At this moment, the majority of energy is obtained from fossil fuels and requires switching over to alternative energy sources is the need of the hour. Fossil fuels are nonrenewable energy source and also have seriously negative impacts on the environment. The use of fossil fuels cause excessive global climate change because emissions of greenhouse pollutants and the formation of compounds CO_x, NO_x, SO_x, C_xH_y, ash and other organic compounds that are released into the atmosphere. The increase in greenhouse gas emission will result in global warming, climate change, environmental degradation and health problems.

Biofuel, any fuel that is derived from biomass - that is, plant or algae material or animal waste. Since such feedstock material can be replenished readily, biofuel is considered to be a source of renewable energy, unlike fossil fuels such as petroleum, coal, and natural gas.

Bacterial biofertilizers are supplied as carrier based inoculants. Peat or lignite is used as carrier material. Carrier based bacterial inoculants are applied by the following methods.

1. Seed treatment or seed inoculation.
2. Seedling root dip and
3. Main field application

Seed Treatment

One packet of the inoculant (200 g) 7is mixed with 200 ml of rice kanji to make a slurry. The seeds required for an acre are mixed in the slurry so as to have a uniform coating of the inoculant over the seeds and then shade dried for 30 minutes. The shade dried seeds should be sown within 24 hours. One packet of the inoculant (200 g) is sufficient to treat 10 kg of seeds.

Biofertilizers are one of the important components of organic farming and sustainable agriculture. Awareness among farmers is increasing on the biological fertilizers. But, the success of biofertilizer inoculation depends on the quality of the inoculant used. Because farmers are unable to judge the quality of the inoculants at the time of purchase or even at use. The inoculant producers are negligent to institute quality control programmes. Unfortunately much of the inoculant produced in the world today is relatively of poor quality. In such situation maintaining high quality inoculant products depend on the internal implementation of effective quality control systems by manufacturer. A major goal of a quality standard is to control the quality of inoculant to be used in any country.

Mass Production of Bacterial Inoculants

Strain Selection and Improvement

In biofertilizer technology, strain selection occupies the foremost criteria, so as to explore its biological potentialities for the beneficiary crop. The selected strain used in biofertilizer production must be efficient to grow fast besides retain desirable potentialities of biological activities, which should be present in desired high numbers and must be stable. The strain must be improved periodically so as to sustain the productivity.

Chemical pesticides though extremely effective in controlling pest population suffer from disadvantages. They have a broad toxic range and potentially toxic to non target organisms. Other constraints that have emerged with the use of chemical pesticides such as development of resistance and resurgence in insects, residual toxicity, secondary outbreak of minor insect pests, etc., In this juncture, the biopesticides have proven to be effective tool in managing the devastating insect pests of various crops.

The biopesticides are types of pesticides derived from natural materials such as microorganisms, plants, animals and certain minerals. They are living organisms or their products or byproducts, which can be used for the management of pests that are injurious to crop plants. Biopesticides have a vital role in crop protection, although most commonly in combination with other tools including chemical pesticides as part of integrated pest management (IPM). Microorganisms help to regulate the abundance of many pests or potential pests without any cost to society. Microbes can be increased artificially and thereby achieve faster, higher and more consistent control of the target pests that will occur naturally. Insect pathogens that are transmissible in nature from one host to another offer an important bonus effect that chemical insecticides do not have. A pathogen will kill pests exposed and many continue killing them by natural transmission from one individual host to another through subsequent host generation.

Biopesticides generally have several advantages compared to conventional pesticides. While chemical pesticides are responsible for extensive pollution of the environment, a serious health hazard due to the presence of their residues in food and development of resistance in targeted insect pest populations, biopesticides, in contrast, are inherently less toxic to humans and the environment, do not leave harmful residues, and are usually more specific to target pests. The agents employed as biopesticides, include parasites, predetors and disease causing fungi, bacteria and viruses, which are the natural enemies of pests. Utilization of naturally occurring parasites, predators and pathogens for pest control is a classical biological control. These bio agents can be conserved, preserved and multiplied under laboratory condition for field release. Once these bio-agents are introduced in the field to build their population considerably, they are capable of bringing down the targeted pest population below economic threshold level (ETL).

For many soil borne diseases, effective and economic control methods are not available. Several soil borne pathogens have developed resistance to many fungicides. The beneficial microbes are also affected by fungicides. Many fungicides pose health hazards by polluting food and water and cause direct toxicity of heavy metals and carcinogenic risk. In the context of growing worldwide awareness of environmental pollution and development of fungicide resistant strains of pathogens, biological method of suppression of disease causing organisms have been recognized as the safest approach for plant disease management.

Biological control of plant diseases is the suppression of populations of plant pathogens by living organisms. Amongst beneficial microorganisms, isolates can be selected which are highly effective against pathogens and can be multiplied on artificial media. Application of such selected and mass produced antagonists in high densities once or several times during a growing season is called “augmentative biological control”.

Mycorrhizal symbiosis is the most prevalent and important mutualistic association in plant kingdom. ‘Mycorrhiza’- the word means fungus - root, this association was reported by A.B.Frank in the year 1885. Nearly 95% of plant species form this mycorrhizal association. This serves as critical linkage between plant roots and soil and characterized by the movement of plant produced carbon to fungus and fungal acquired nutrients to plants. Through its hyphae this fungus absorbs the available P from soil and transports directly to root cortex. Mycorrhizal associations vary widely in structure and function. There are seven types of mycorrhizae (Table 1). These are endo (arbuscular), ecto, ectendo, arbutoid, monotropoid, ericoid, and orchidaceous mycorrhizae. Among them, endomycorrhizae and ectomycorrhizae are the most abundant and widespread

Introduction

Biofertilizers are microbial preparations containing living or latent cells of efficient strains of nitrogen fixing, phosphate solubilizing and cellulose decomposing microorganisms intended for seed or soil application and designed to improve soil fertility and plant growth by increasing the number and biological activity of beneficial microorganisms in the soil.

The objects behind the application of biofertilizers /microbial inoculants to seed, soil is to increase the number and biological / metabolic activity of useful microorganisms that accelerate certain microbial processes to augment the extent of availability of nutrients in the available forms which can be easily assimilated by plants. The need for the use of biofertilizers has arisen primarily due to two reasons i.e. though chemical fertilizers increase soil fertility, crop productivity and production, but increased / intensive use of chemical fertilizers has caused serious concern of soil texture, soil fertility and other environmental problems.Use of biofertilizers is both economical as well as environment friendly. Therefore, an integrated approach of applying both chemical fertilizers and biofertilizers is the best way of integrated nutrient supply in agriculture.

Biofertilizers, thus include i) Symbiotic nitrogen fixers- Rhizobium sp. ii) Non-symbiotic, free living nitrogen fixers- Azotobacter, Azospirillum etc. iii) Blue Green Algae (BGA) inoculants- Azolla-Anabaena, iv) Phosphate solubilizing microorganisms (PSM)- Bacillus, Pseudomonas, Penicillium, Aspergillus etc. v) Mycorrhiza vi) Cellulolytic microorganisms

Silage is preserved pasture. Fresh forage crops such as maize, grasses, legumes, wheat and lucerne can be preserved by ensiling. Silage is the green material produced by controlled fermentation of the green fodder crop retaining the high moisture content, which contain 20-40% dry matter.

Silage can be prepared from plants having thick stems and are generally not very suitable for hay making like sorghum, maize. Weeds can also be utilized along with main fodder crops for silage making. Silage making kills majority of weed seeds. It is highly palatable. The organic acids produced in the silage are similar to those normally produced in the digestive tract of the ruminants and therefore are used in the same manner.