CapsiScan: Autonomous Robotic System for Monitoring and Managing Greenhouse-Based Capsicum Farms

Abstract

The automation of processes in greenhouses provides a significant advantage to the agricultural sector. Due to the rapid growth of the population, increasing demand for food and labor shortage make the autonomous monitoring and management of agricultural work more important. Capsicum is a largely consumed vegetable in South Asia, which can be efficiently grown in greenhouses. Although there are many capsicum farms, they lack quality and efficient production to match the increasing demand. This paper proposes a robotic system for use in capsicum greenhouses that can navigate and monitor the plants to identify diseases, track the yield, and take remediation actions. The robot navigates to each plant in the greenhouse autonomously by using the SLAM approach with the use of laser range sensor data. The 4 DoF robotic arm of the robot has a camera and a sprayer attached to its end to investigate plants and spray remedies to diseased plants. The robotic arm moves around the plant to capture the images to detect deceases and count the pods to estimate the yield. The sprayer of the robot sprays remedies precisely to targeted plants to control pests and diseases. The system was successfully implemented and tested with the proposed functions.