Introduction

Technology is fast taking shape in all the sectors of the economy across the globe and the
agricultural sector is not any exception. Farmers are fast turnig to technology in addressing
numeroys pressuing challenges within the agricultural industry for instance the rising
worldwide food shortage and unreliable agricultural workforce. Agricuktural robots are used in
the automation of slow, dull and repetitive activities for the farmers giving them an opporunitiy
to concentraye on enhacing the production yields while at the same time enahcing the
efficiency of the farm besides a reduction in the labor needs and overall costs of operation.
Agricultural robots as well aid in achieving precision in agriculture where the distribution of
resources is done in a more efficient maner resulting in substantial savings in cost as well as use
of the resources. Advanced robotic systems are cutrently deployed in crop harvesting besides
picking processes, mowing, weed control, sedding besides packing and sorting agricultural
produce. Among the leading areas in whkch robots are ideally suited for use in agricultural
operations is with regard to spratying of pesticides in the control of weeds.
Crops need require application of pesticides to ensure the yields are mainyained. Manual
applction of pesticides by wokers using knapsack sprayers are medieval mechnsism that are
very inefficient and time-consuming besides resyting in high requiremenst of labor and costs
especially when it comes to covering relatively large tracks of agricultural fields.
Pesticide application robots have the potential of carrying large storage reservoirs, be used at a
portion of the cost in comparsion with the coneventional methods besides being operated in a
safe and autonomous manner. Research estimates that the use of robots in spraying pesticides
has the potential of reducing the requirements of labor by to the tune of five fold in comparsion
with human laborers using knapsack sprayers.
Numeroys agrguctural robots with the pootentil of conducting some of the operations are
already in existence even as the invention and development of others is going on. The
agirucultural robots used today are nevertheless too sophisticated, slow besides being
expensive in terms of cost hence not publicly available for everyone.
This study is aimed at developing a low-cost agircuktural robots for use in the spraying of
pesticides within the agricultural fields. The design of this rover system will take into
consideration the ability of traversing across ragged and uneven terrains to ensure its
maximization for use over the agricultural field.
Methodology
Construction of the System
The figure below illustrates the autonomous pesticide spraying design done in CAD. The deisgn
forms the basis of the autonomous pesticide spraying system with the specifications as
illustrayed in tabular form. The autonomous pesticide spraying robot has been design to be 150
cm in size and a height of 1800 mm as the height of most of the agircultiral plants are below
2000 mm. the overview of the autonomous pesticide spraying system depicts an overall
connection between two various systesms that are to be combines within the autonomous
pesticide spraying robot. The connection between the select elements within the deisgned
robot is integral and has a key role to play in esnyring the functioning of the robot occurs as
required. Any disconnection or even misconnection between the electronic sections might
result in mafucntion of the deisgned autonomous pesticide spraying system thus deviation of
the operation from attaining the intended project aims.

In ensuring the cost of fabirction of the autonomous pesticide spraying robot was maintained at
minimum levels, the autonomous pesticide spraying robot prototype frame was fabricated
using Perspez sheets. Among the features of Perspex making it ideal for use in this design
include high durability, lightweight, high strength as well as corrosion resistnce. The robot
frame is used in the provision of the required structural righity for atahcming the various
hardware components in perfoming pesticide spraying tasks and at the same time offering
protection against mechanical accidental splashes from the sprying especially for the sensitive
electronic elements.
Navigation system
This system is composed of ultrasonic sensors, brushless DC motor having a motor driver for
each of the motors, microcontroller and a 24 V DC rechargeable battery. The microcontroller
serves as the core of the system in whch writing and loading of the program can be done for
control of the operation and sequence of the peripheral which connectes to its pin 12 within
the microcrontoller. The coding would be uploaded, using the predetermined programming
software, nto the microconriolller that would aid in the determination of the operation of the
designed autonomous pesticide spraying.
10 units of ultrasonic sensors was mounted at the frame edge as well as at the centre of every
frame. The sensor will form an integral element in the development and design of the robot
with the needs of moving and navigating without human intervention. It will hence serve as the
ears and eyes retrieving data or even information from the neighhorhood before relaying the
same to the microcontroller for processing. The operation of the ultrasonic sensor is premised
on calculated isatnce from the taken time interval by the emitted sound waves in repelling back
to the receiver.
Spraying system
Since the autonomous pesticide spraying robot should be able to execuite navigation and
spraying operations simultaneously, the sequence within the programming code has a critical
role to play for the designed robot. The key compients of the spraying system will integrated 2-
channel relay circuit, reserviro tank, pesticide pump, mist nozzles and tube. For the case of this
design autonomous pesticide spraying robot, a reservoir tank with a capacity of 20 litres of
pesticides will be used. 12V/70W 150 psi diaphragm pesticide is chosen for this project to
acgive a supppky of the pesticide from the selected reservoir tank size. The pesticide pump
selection is integral sicne the pump should be able to push out the pesticide at the desired
pressure. Spraying can be directlty allocated to the desired and targeted plants with the aid of
the pump especially for the case of crop leaves, by just providing an electrical input to the
pump that procured by the sensor when detected by the plant.

Findings
Analysis was done of the measurement data extracted from the autonomous pesticide spraying
robot untrasonic sensor and plots generated of the autonomous pesticide spraying robot
moving path as illustrated. Tests were conducted on the autonomous pesticide spraying robot
for stop at the detection point by front sensor. The developed autonomous pesticide spraying
robot is noted to be spray pesticiedes on 50 plants per minutes in comparsion with 20 plants
done by hyman laborer withi the same time. The findings of the tests condcucted on the
autonomous pesticide spraying robot established that it was able to perform as per the
requirmeents in real-world application situations.