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Design and Development of a Multi-Tasking Autonomous Agriculture Robot

using ESP32 Microcontroller

Article · October 2023

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 International Journal of Research in Engineering, Science and Management 54

Volume 5, Issue 7, July 2022

https://www.ijresm.com | ISSN (Online): 2581-5792

Design and Development of a Multi-Tasking

Autonomous Agriculture Robot using ESP32
Microcontroller
Rupali Patil1, Shinde Kiran Navnath2, Pawar Adesh Abasaheb3*, Hande Prajwal Prakash4,
Songekar Vinayak Shankar5
1
Professor, Department of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering, Bharati Vidyapeeth College of Engineering, Navi Mumbai, India
2,3,4,5
Student, Department of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering, Bharati Vidyapeeth College of Engineering, Navi Mumbai, India

Abstract: With innovations in every field of our lives, the efficiency of the various processes involved right from
agriculture is also a field that is getting impacted on a huge scale sowing to harvesting the crops. Technology can bring in
with technological innovations. Smart farming is aiding in
disruptive changes over the traditional laborious methods.
boosting the quality and quantity of the yields. This paper
discusses the design and development of an autonomous Smart farming can help bring in a cost-effective solution for the
multitasking robot that can be used for digging the soil, sowing farmer. Agriculture robots can help the farmers in automating
seeds, harvesting as well as irrigation. This robot works on solar the laborious and repetitive tasks and provide the farmer with
energy and will also help in conserving non-renewable energy more time at his hand for devoting to other aspects of farming
resources on a large scale thereby contributing towards a that can help in improvising the overall production.
sustainability of our planet. The main aim is to provide smart
With the rising population across the globe, there is a huge
farming at low cost without compromising on the efficiency of the
processes involved. The primary aim of our project is to develop a gap between the demand and supply of agriculture produce.
multitasking agricultural robot, which can be used for agricultural Automating can definitely help in reducing this gap. This paper
processes like digging the soil, seed sowing, crop discusses the design and development of a prototype of a smart
cutting(harvesting) and irrigation system. keeping in mind low robot that is capable of performing various operations like
cost and more efficient. This robot will derive its power from solar sensing the soil moisture content, ploughing, seed dispensing
panel making it energy efficient and eco- friendly. A Multitasking
and irrigation. The system based on the ESP32 microcontroller
robot for the field of Agriculture has been studied in this research.
Now a day, precision agriculture by agricultural robots is the can run in the auto/manual mode. In the manual mode, the robot
newly emerging technology in agriculture sector to save the time uses the wi-fi pairing app as the control device and helps in the
and energy that is wasted in repetitive farming tasks automation navigation of the robot on the field.
in farming processes is quite helpful. To design these sorts of Embracing new technologies will change the face of the
robots there should be certain considerations and particular agricultural sector.
approach considering the agriculture environment in which it will
be working. The working of an autonomous robot is based on field
parameters i.e., length and width. Prototype of an agricultural 2. Literature Survey
robot is modelled for multitasking such as seeding, ploughing and The authors in [1] have developed a robot that is capable of
harvesting with a separate irrigation system. It will also help in performing operations like humidity sensing, automatic
decreasing the use of non-renewable sources of energy and will not ploughing and seed dispensing. The AVR AtMega
pollute the environment. The approach is now to develop smarter
machines that are intelligent enough to work in an unmodified or Microcontroller is used for the monitoring and control. The
semi natural environment. robot tills the entire field and then proceeds to perform the
ploughing operation while simultaneously performing the
Keywords: Smart farming, multitasking agriculture robot. operation of dispensing the seeds on the tilled soil. The robot is
operated in the “automatic” mode while it is on the field and in
1. Introduction the “manual” mode while it is off the field. [2] discusses a robot
Robotics is influencing our lives in many fields some of system used for cultivating agricultural land without the use of
which are Manufacturing, Education, Healthcare, Personal man power. The main aim is to reduce the work of the farm
Technology, etc. Robotics is also impacting the agriculture field labourers, and increase the productivity in any given span of
and this can have a considerable impact on the farm produce time. The authors in [3] elaborate the use of new technologies
especially since agriculture plays an important role for the to increase the farm yield. The paper discusses use of latest
Indian economy. Farmers today can benefit from the electronic technology based on use of Microcontrollers and
technological advancements. Automation can help in boosting GSM. In [4] the authors have discussed the scenarios having

*Corresponding author: [email protected]

Patil et al. International Journal of Research in Engineering, Science and Management, VOL. 5, NO. 7, JULY 2022 55

decreased water tables, drying rivers and lakes; unpredictable dispensing. A soil moisture sensor aids in sensing the moisture
issues due to climate changes. The authors elucidate the dire content of the soil. For cutting and digging, a dc motor is
need of effective utilization of water. The authors have used connected via a relay. A motor pump is used with a two-way
temperature sensors as well as moisture sensors at appropriate sprayer nozzle for spraying and watering purpose. A mini solar
locations for monitoring the crops. A microcontroller-based panel is connected to a rechargeable lead acid batter for
system has been developed with threshold values of the powering the robot. IC7805 fixed voltage regulator provides 5V
temperature and the soil moisture and a control is maintained DC regulated supply as required by the circuits. An Android
on the amount of water dispensed. The system is powered by app is designed using MIT App Inventor 2 for controlling the
photovoltaic cells and a duplex communication link based on a robot over wi-fi.
cellular internet interface that allows data inspection and Fig. 4 and 5 illustrate the use of the solar panel and the base
irrigation scheduling is incorporated using a web page. Wireless frame of the robot.
sensor networks helped in the monitoring and control of the Fig. 2 shows the circuit diagram.
greenhouse parameters in precision agriculture. In [5] the
authors have used Arduino Uno ATmega 328p Microcontroller
for controlling the robot. Esp3266 wifi module is used for the
communication. A soil moisture sensor is used for checking the
water content in the soil. The node MCU ESP8266
microcontroller-based robot in [6] uses various sensors such as
PIR, soil moisture and flame sensor. The authors in [7] discuss
a solar based agriculture robot that uses a solar panel with 12V
DC battery and performs functions like grass cutting and
fertilizer spraying. In [8] the authors have developed a
multitasking robot using PIC 18f 4520 microcontroller which
performs operations like sprinkling water, ploughing, grass
cutting.
Fig. 2. Circuit diagram
3. Proposed System
The objective of this paper is to discuss the design and
development of a system that is capable of performing most of
the agriculture activities using a robot. The robot is controlled
using an Android App specially designed for this system. It
works over the Wi-Fi protocol The system is solar powered
thereby ensuring conservation of electricity.
The system block diagram is as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Block diagram

The system is developed using the ESP32 microcontroller

that also has an inbuilt wi-fi facility. A L293D motor driver is
used for driving the two motors of the robot. ASG90 servo Fig. 3. Flow chart
motor is connected for helping with the function of seed
Patil et al. International Journal of Research in Engineering, Science and Management, VOL. 5, NO. 7, JULY 2022 56

Hardware interface:
Multi-tasking robot: The soil moisture senses the moisture
present in soil, by using this information we can take
appropriate decision. The various multi task such as ploughing,
seed sowing, fertilizer spraying water sprinkling, moisture
sensor and grass cutting can be done on request of user
(Farmer).

Fig. 7. Hardware setup

Fig. 4. Solar panel installation Table 1

Feature Estimated time/m Actual time/m
Seed Sowing 8 min 9.5 min
Watering 2 min 2.3 min
Spraying Pesticides 2 min 2.3 min
Grass Cutting 7 min 7.5 min

5. Conclusion
A prototype of a multi-purpose autonomous robot for
agriculture has been successfully implemented and has been
tested for various functions like ploughing, dispensing seeds,
watering and spraying. The robot can help the farmers in
labour-intensive and monotonous tasks thereby providing more
time at hand for paying attention to other aspects of farming and
the logistics involved.
Fig. 5. Base frame of robot The future work can include incorporating of Computer
Vision for improving the efficiency of the robot.
4. Result
Software interface: An app is made using MIT app inventor References
2 this is use to control all the activities of robot to mobile device [1] Amrita Sneha A, Ankita A, Abirami E., “Agricultural Robot for
with the help of wi-fi. Automatic Ploughing and Seeding”, 2015 IEEE (TIAR 2015).
[2] P. Usha, and V. Nandagopal, “Design and Implementation of Seeding
Agricultural Robot”.
[3] Abdullah Tanveer, Abhish Choudhary, Divya Pal. “Automated Farming
Using Microcontroller and Sensors”, International Journal of Scientific
Research and Management Studies, 2015.
[4] Nikesh Gondchawar, R. S. Kawitkar, “IoT Based Smart Agriculture”,
International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer and
Communication Engineering, 2016.
[5] Renuka Dhavale, Shweta Kalshetty, Bhushan Patil, Prachi Choudhari,
Ajay Pal Singh, “Digging and Seed Sowing AGRIBOT,” 2021,
[6] Jerosheja, Mythili C., “Solar Powered Automated Multi-Tasking
Agricultural Robot”, 2020.
[7] C. Kokane, Pavan E. Joshi, “Multi-Tasking Agricultural Robot”, 2020.
[8] Chandrakant D. Bhos, Shrutika M. Deshmukh, Prajakta A. Bhise, Shweta
B. Avhad, “Solar Powered Multi-Function Agri-Robot”, 2020.
[9] Nithin P. V, Shivaprakash S., “Multi-purpose Agricultural Robot”, 2016.
[10] Abdulrahman, Mangesh Koli, Umesh Kori, Ahmadakbar, “Seed Sowing
Robot”, 2017.
Fig. 6. Di-farming robot

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