ANDROID BASED FARM AUTOMATION USING GR-SAKURA INTRODUCTION AND MOTIVATION With the world‟s population growing day by day, and land resources remaining unchanged, there is a growing need in optimization of agricultural productivity, and this can be achieved by automation of agriculture. Farmers are already using computers on tractors to make agriculture more efficient. So called „i-farming' uses GPS to tell tractors where less pesticide is needed, therefore reducing the usage of pesticide. But still there has not been any autonomous process where the farmer need not spend more time in his farm, and lands controlling the action of fertilizers and pesticides, the harvesting of fruits, the irrigation, the management of power or the maintenance of plants. Our system aims at automating the agricultural , by availing the farmers a portable and an easy tool to use that will automate the various processes that the farmer does. OUR GOAL Our goal is to develop a portable system, with one end being a Smart Phone with an Android application, and the other end being a monitoring system using GR-SAKURA interfaced with LabVIEW, which commands a wireless controlled robot that performs the tasks of the famer such as applying pesticides and fertilizer, maintaining the plants, harvesting fruits, analysing the conditions of crops, managing the power being used in the farm, and controlling the irrigation. THE CHALLENGE The challenges of this project are: - To implement a Real Image Processing based system that will send real time field images from a wireless camera to a base station. - To integrate a Robotic Arm to a wireless robot, whose operation will be controlled remotely from an Android application, and which has the capability to identify and track a targeted object, such as a fruit on a tree. - To integrate pesticide and fertilizer spraying mechanisms on the wireless controlled robot. - To control the generation of energy using solar power; the power system needs to switch to this source, whenever the energy from it is sufficient. - To control the irrigation process, by recycling the used waters.
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ANDROID BASED FARM AUTOMATION USING
GR-SAKURA
INTRODUCTION AND MOTIVATION
With the world‟s population growing day by day, and land resources remaining unchanged,
there is a growing need in optimization of agricultural productivity, and this can be achieved by
automation of agriculture.
Farmers are already using computers on tractors to make agriculture more efficient. So called
„i-farming' uses GPS to tell tractors where less pesticide is needed, therefore reducing the
usage of pesticide.
But still there has not been any autonomous process where the farmer need not spend more
time in his farm, and lands controlling the action of fertilizers and pesticides, the harvesting of
fruits, the irrigation, the management of power or the maintenance of plants.
Our system aims at automating the agricultural , by availing the farmers a portable and an easy
tool to use that will automate the various processes that the farmer does.
OUR GOAL
Our goal is to develop a portable system, with one end being a Smart Phone with an Android
application, and the other end being a monitoring system using GR-SAKURA interfaced with
LabVIEW, which commands a wireless controlled robot that performs the tasks of the famer
such as applying pesticides and fertilizer, maintaining the plants, harvesting fruits, analysing the
conditions of crops, managing the power being used in the farm, and controlling the irrigation.
THE CHALLENGE
The challenges of this project are:
- To implement a Real Image Processing based system that will send real time field
images from a wireless camera to a base station.
- To integrate a Robotic Arm to a wireless robot, whose operation will be controlled
remotely from an Android application, and which has the capability to identify and track a
targeted object, such as a fruit on a tree.
- To integrate pesticide and fertilizer spraying mechanisms on the wireless controlled
robot.
- To control the generation of energy using solar power; the power system needs to switch
to this source, whenever the energy from it is sufficient.
- To control the irrigation process, by recycling the used waters.
THE SOLUTION
To the above mentioned problems, we propose a remote controlled robot equipped with a
robotic arm and a wireless camera, whose operation will be controlled by an android application
through GR-SAKURA interfaced to the base station to make easier the task of the farmer by
using the various tools of the robot.
This remote controlled robot will include the following modules:
- A solar panel that recharges the battery of the Robot, and ensures large power
autonomy of the Robot.
- An on-board wireless camera that acquire the field image, and transmit them to the base
station, processes the acquired images, and gives results such as crop quality, insects
found, whether a fruit is ripened or not, etc.
- An on board robotic arm used for picking fruits from trees, and some other farm products
,and ultimately can be used to pick various plastic and non-alterable dirtiness on the way
when developed.
- A mechanism for assuring an accurate spraying of fertilizer and pesticides.
- Monitoring and management of power sources. It will monitor the solar energy source,
and will switch to it whenever its energy is sufficient to power the farm robot.
UTILIZATION OF GR-SAKURA IN THE PROJECT
The GR-SAKURA provided an excellent platform for building our prototype utilizing all the
features on the SAKURA board like its Ethernet, SD memory card slot and the arduino
compatible pins.
The following is the explanation on how the board features were utilized.
Arduino Compatible Pins:
All the real time parameters and its values from the field were fed into the GR-SAKURA
by the sensors. The various parameters are soil moisture content, temperature, security
alarm to monitor if animals intrude into the farm, rainfall, humidity, light intensity, wind
direction and speed monitoring. All these are continuously monitored and GR-SAKURA
with its Arduino compatible pins aids in this process.
Ethernet slot:
Using this feature we are able to make the GR-SAKURA act as a server thereby gaining
access to it and controlling the farm activities just by typing the public IP address of the
router present there. Thus through the web farm can be controlled.The port forwarding
has been configured in the router so as to access the SAKURA which is a server. The IP
address of the SAKURA is also configured by us in the range of the router.
Micro SD card slot:
Farmers can use this feature to retrieve stored data in it, may it be temperature,
humidity, rainfall, etc. The data are stored for prescribed number of days in the memory
card. The “sdmmc” header file is included in the program to include the SD feature into
the project.
The base station monitors the internet database for new updates from the android application,
based on the updates from the android application; the LabVIEW station controls the remote
Robot actions. The station also analyses the images acquired from the wireless camera on the
remote Robot. Apart from these, the LabVIEW station is also equipped with a sensor network
with the GR-SAKURA that monitors the weather, the temperature and the quality of soil and
water;
The LabVIEW station transmits the various data that it has acquired from the farm to an internet
database, which the farmer can monitor using his android application, and from which he can
enable some actions remotely such as the spray of fertilizer, irrigation, fruit picking, etc.
Our project also includes DTMF based control system to control the farm activities in places
which is void of internet. Thus GSM based technology can be used to activate and deactivate
irrigation, fertilizer and other activities.
Images of our project:
APPLICATIONS
This system may find extensive application in agriculture and farming; this concept may further
be applied in areas such as industry, and urban cleaning and maintenance.
It also finds an application in power management, by managing the use of alternative source of
energy.
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
If implemented, this system may improve the way agriculture is done all over the world by
helping the farmer to save money, time and energy, by doing some of the tasks the farmer
usually does or for which he needs workers.
This system may monitor and report real time situation of the farm in an accurate manner to the
famer‟s mobile, thus helping the farmer to be aware of the condition of the crops and plants,
whether they have been infected by any insects, whether the soil condition is good, etc.
This system also gives to the farmer a tool to activate the spraying of fertilizer and pesticides, to
harvest fruits, to control the irrigation process by recycling used water, to remove unwanted
elements and other dirtiness from the ground, and finally to manage the usage of power.
In future development, a web site can be included in this system, where farm products order can
be placed, and from which order can be processed, packed and made ready for delivery.