Journal of Robotics, Networking and Artificial Life

In Press,
Vol. 6(3); Uncorrected
December Proof
(2019), pp. 143–147
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2991/jrnal.k.211108.006;
https://doi.org/10.2991/jrnal.k.200512.002; ISSN 2405-9021; eISSN 2352-6386
https://www.atlantis-press.com/journals/jrnal

Research Article
Automated Seeding and Irrigation System using Arduino

Anirban Kumar*, Heshalini Rajagopal

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Manipal International University, Malaysia

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article History Malaysia, has a very conducive environment for agriculture. Six percent of the population are employed to some of the agriculture
Received 26 October 2020 activities making agriculture the most curtail industry in Malaysia. Hence, there is a need to develop the agricultural facilities by
Accepted 04 June 2021 incorporating latest technological advancements. Conventional seeding process is time consuming and requires additional labor
cost. In this paper, an automated system is proposed for seeding as well as irrigation process in agriculture which reduces the labor
Keywords cost. This system aims to increase the efficiency of the seeding process without affecting the nature of soil. The proposed system
Agriculture is equipped with Arduino MEGA and Arduino UNO which acts as the main control unit while ultrasonic and soil moisture
seeding sensors are used to detect the obstacles and soil moisture level, respectively. The robot consists of a funnel like arrangement to
irrigation perform the seeding procedure. The field is equipped with moisture sensors placed at different areas that monitors the moisture
Arduino MEGA level of the soil on a regular interval for irrigation purposes. The proposed system will be of great benefit to the future endeavor
ultrasonic sensors of agricultural business as well as it will be able to optimize the seeding and irrigation.
soil moisture sensors
© 2021 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press International B.V.
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

1. INTRODUCTION 2. PRIOR WORK

Agriculture is the oldest and yet an important economic activity for Aravind Kumar et al. [3] have proposed a machine for seeding
any given country. There are distinct available types of machines and irrigation to limit the working expense and decrease the ideal
for harvesting, ploughing, pesticide control, etc. Most of these opportunity for planting seed and irrigation operations by using
machines are manually operated to execute the required action. solar energy to operate the system. There is a sharp pointed iron
Different machines are used to perform separate action which leads attached to the front of the robot to dig the soil for seed sowing,
to lower profit returns [1]. Seeding is a tedious yet a crucial activ- once the seed is planted the supporter at the back end of the robot
ity for a farmer. Seeding of a large farmland is even more tedious, covers the dug land with soil. Versatile computerized water system
which demands for big group of personnel for manual seeding. robot was built to irrigate the plants appropriately [3]. However,
To minimize the personnel required for seeding, harvesting etc., this study does not irrigate the planted seed immediately after the
agriculture machineries were developed. Planting of seeds man- seeding process is completed.
ually, leads to low spacing efficiency and seed placement, serious
Sujon et al. [4] have proposed an autonomous prototype robot that
health issues and tedious task [2]. Ideal solution to overcome the
will help farmers in the farmland. It is an Arduino controlled robot
deficiencies discussed above is by developing a machine that car-
that carries out ploughing, sowing and watering process. The robot
ries out more than one action and by atomization of the developed
carries out farming using ultrasonic sensors in order to change its
machine, which will lead to intensification of the yield.
position from one farming strip to another. The robot aims contrib-
The primary aim of this paper is to design and develop an efficient ute greatly in developing the farming strategies and reduce farmers
seeding and irrigation system. This system consists of an Arduino cost [4]. However, this robot can carry out farming for land area of
MEGA, Arduino UNO, ultrasonic sensors, DC motor, servo limited land area only.
motors and moisture sensors. The scissor lift is designed using
Sunitha et al. [5] have proposed a robotic system that localizes the
Fusion 360 and 3D printed. Arduino MEGA and UNO holds all the
path and can navigate itself without human action. For plough-
commands, receive all the parameters from the sensors and send
ing, this robot is equipped with tentacles that has saw blades.
output signals accordingly. The ultrasonic sensors will be used for
The locomotion is provided with wheels covered under conveyor
the object detection and moisture and DHT 22 sensor will contin-
belts. For each rotation every tooth on gear will take seeds and will
uously monitor the moisture of the soil, humidity and temperature
drop them on field. Camera at the front end tracks the path for
of the surroundings on a regular interval and alerts the monitoring
every fixed distance and at the minimum distance it takes the path
system.
pre-programmed [5]. However, this study has a drawback where
the system uses camera and image processing for object detection
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
*
which makes the system complex. In addition, the object detection
2 A. Kumar and H. Rajagopal / Journal of Robotics, Networking and Artificial Life. In Press

can be inaccurate if the image captured is subjected to motion blur

due to the dirty camera lens and camera movement.
Thawali et al. [6] have proposed robot capable of performing opera-
tions like automatic ploughing, seed dispensing and pesticide spray-
ing autonomously and provides manual control when required.
Initially the robot digs the entire field simultaneously dispensing
seeds side by side. On the field the robot operates on automated
mode. For manual control the robot uses the remote controller as
control device and helps in the navigation of the robot on the field Figure 2 | Block diagram for soil moisture, humidity and temperature
[6]. However, there is no obstacle detection system and hence there monitoring system.
are chances that this robot will runover planted plats if there is no
human presence to deviate the robot from the predefined path.
Thorat Swapnil et al. [2] have proposed a sowing machine which is
operated. This machine is capable of planting different types and
different sizes of seeds and the spacing between two seeds can be
varied. Seed storage tank is connected at the top of the robot near
rear wheels. Front sensor serves the function of guiding the robot.
As any obstacle comes in front of robot it gives the signal to the
robot and diverts the path of robot [2]. However, the system does
not monitor the soil or plant condition, hence the farmers still have
to invest in systems that monitor those two variables.

3. METHODOLOGY
The block diagram for the motion, seeding, irrigation, obstacle
detection and avoidance is shown in Figure 1. The main control
unit of this system is Arduino MEGA which is powered by a 9-V
Figure 3 | Arduino DC motor control.
battery. Ultrasonic sensors fed input to the Arduino MEGA regard-
ing the obstacle detection. Arduino MEGA will analyze the received
inputs and control the output to the lifting servos. DC motors are which controls the direction of motor rotation. Pins 9 and 10 are
powered by a 7.7-V Lithium Polymer battery; the motors are used PWM signal outputs, at a given time there is only one active PWM,
for the movement of the robot. Arduino MEGA controls the motor this allows for the control of direction as well as the speed by vary-
direction and speed (RPM) using L298N module. ing the duty cycle of the PWM signal. The active PWM pin decides
the motor direction of rotation (one at a time, the other output is
The block diagram for the soil moisture, humidity and tempera-
logic 0). The speed of the DC motor (both directions) is controlled
ture monitoring system is shown in Figure 2. Soil moisture and
with the 10 kΩ potentiometer which is connected to analog chan-
DHT 22 sensors provide input to the Arduino UNO regarding the
nel 0 (A0). The L293D driver has two VCCs: VCC1 is +5 V and
soil moisture level, temperature and humidity of the surrounding,
VCC2 is +12 V.
respectively. The input information from the sensors will be sent to
the Android Application and SMS via GSM module.
3.2. Lifting System
3.1. Arduino DC Motor Control Figure 4 shows the circuit diagram for the lifting system which
incorporates ultrasonic sensor, Arduino and motor. The system is
Figure 3 shows the circuit diagram of Arduino DC motor control.
used to lift the robot upward to a predefined height once the ultra-
Only three Arduino pins are required, pin 8 is for the push button
sonic sensor detects any obstacle. Once the robot reaches the pre-
defined height, the plant will be irrigated and then the robot will
move forward to irrigate the plants ahead. When all the plants in
that segment are irrigated the robot will be brought down.

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1. Seeding Mechanism
This subsection explains the seeding mechanism performed by
the robot. The robot takes ten seconds to initialize. Upon initial-
Figure 1 | Block diagram for seeding, irrigation and obstacle avoidance. ization, robot moves forward for 2 s at the speed of 200 rpm and
 A. Kumar and H. Rajagopal / Journal of Robotics, Networking and Artificial Life. In Press 3

Figure 5 | Seeding process of Mung dhal.

Figure 4 | Circuit diagram for the lifting system.

then comes to a halt to facilitate the seeding and irrigation process,

respectively. Once the seeding and irrigation process is completed,
the robot moves forward for two more times before it turns to the
next row. The robot is programmed to drops the seed at an interval
of 6 s and 7 cm. Figure 5 shows the seeding process of mung dhal.
The robot is capable of preforming seeding of seeds with diameter
up to 1.3 cm (13 mm), because the diameter of the seed funnel used
in this prototype is 1.5 cm (15 mm).
Figure 6 | Robot performing irrigation.

4.2. Irrigation Mechanism Table 1 | Irrigation detail

Figure 6 shows that the robot performs irrigation after the seed- Irrigation tank capacity: 500 ml
Irrigation pump flow rate: 1.2–1.6 L/min
ing process. The water requirement for each crop is different.
Irrigation per seed: 20–30 ml
For example, water required for crops like mung dhal and peas is Irrigation type: drip irrigation
20–25 ml water. Table 1 shows the irrigation details of the robot
prototype.

4.3. Monitoring System

This subsection explains temperature and soil moisture monitoring
system by using Android Application to enhance the user acces-
sibility. The soil moisture, humidity and temperature monitoring
system is developed using the Android App which was created
using the MIT App Inventor. The app is designed to display the
information regarding the soil moisture, humidity and tempera-
ture level of each land segment. The layout of the App is shown in
Figure 7.
The monitoring system is beneficial for the user, because it helps
to keep track of the soil moisture, the surrounding environment
and carry out on demand irrigation. It also helps the farmers to
store the data for future weather prediction and planning on land
management based on the data collected. Figure 7 | Monitoring the soil condition using android app.
4 A. Kumar and H. Rajagopal / Journal of Robotics, Networking and Artificial Life. In Press

base ultrasonic sensor when the obstacle has been passed. This
also enables the system to water the tall plants. Soil moisture and
DHT22 sensors are fixed on the land to sense the soil moisture,
humidity and temperature. The readings of these parameters are
sent to the user via SMS every 1 min. In addition, the user can
view the readings of the parameters via Android App. The robot
moves forward once and perform the seeding at one point, irri-
gate the seed and moves to the next point for the seeding process.
The robot dispenses seeds automatically at a fixed distance (7 cm).
The robot can be further improved by using image processing and
robotic arm for the weed removal.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Figure 8 | Robot lifts up. The authors declare they have no conflicts of interest.

4.4. Lifting System REFERENCES

This subsection explains the lifting system to avoid obstacles while [1] S.A. Amrita, E. Abirami, A. Ankita, R. Praveena, R. Srimeena,
maneuvering and assist in irrigation. The robot is equipped with Agricultural Robot for automatic ploughing and seeding, 2015
two ultrasonic sensors to detect obstacles at the front and base IEEE International Conference on Technological Innovations
of the robot. When front ultrasonic sensor detects an obstacle at in ICT for Agriculture and Rural Development (TIAR), IEEE,
distance of 10 cm or less, the system stops and activates the lift- Chennai, India, 2015, pp. 17–23.
ing system to avoid the obstacles. When the system has fully lift [2] V. Thorat Swapnil, M.L. Kasturi, P. Girish, P. Rajkumar, Design
upwards, the base ultrasonic sensor activates, and the robot con- and fabrication of seed sowing machine, Int. Res. J. Eng. Technol.
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AUTHORS INTRODUCTION

Mr. Anirban Kumar Dr. Heshalini Rajagopal

He received the Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical She received her PhD from the Department
and Electronic Engineering in 2019 from of Electrical Engineering, University of
Manipal International University, Malaysia. Malaya, Malaysia in 2021. She received the B.E.
Currently, he is an Automation Engineer in (Electrical) in 2013 and M. Eng. Sc. in 2016 from
Bajaj Electrical, India. His research interest University of Malaya, Malaysia. Currently, she is
includes digital electronics, embedded system a lecturer in Manipal International University,
and machine learning. Nilai, Malaysia. Her research interest includes image process-
ing, artificial intelligence and machine learning.