IIT Kharagpur's new smart tracked robot detects crop disease, sprays pesticide

The semi-automatic tracked mobile manipulator cum agricultural robotic system has been successfully designed and developed by a group of students at the Institute's Mechanical Engineering Department.

The intelligent robotic system aims to address the recurring challenges faced by farmers in identifying plant diseases and ensuring appropriate and safe pesticide application.

Recognising that agricultural terrains are neither completely smooth nor entirely rough, Prof. Dilip Kumar Pratihar, who led the research, proposed a tracked mobile manipulator as the ideal solution.

"This system features a serial manipulator, resembling a human hand, mounted on a tracked vehicle -- designed specifically for field navigation and precision tasks," Pratihar said.

While drone-based agricultural robots have gained popularity, they struggle to capture high-quality images of plant leaves due to the forced draught created during flight, resulting in noisy data.

"This tracked mobile manipulator could be used to serve numerous purposes in the agricultural field, such as plant health monitoring, plant disease identification, pesticide spraying, fruit or vegetables harvesting, etc," the researchers mentioned in the paper, presented during the 2021 IEEE 18th India Council International Conference (INDICON) organised by IIT Guwahati.

The newly developed ground-based tracked mobile manipulator uses camera-based image analysis for accurate disease detection, followed by automatic spraying of the appropriate pesticide.

The robotic system, funded by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, not only aims to reduce the health risks faced by farmers during manual pesticide spraying, but also significantly enhances food quality and agricultural productivity.

By minimising crop loss due to diseases, it supports improved yield and cost efficiency, contributing positively to the nation's GDP, the Institute said.