Design and development of an intelligent vehicle for spraying pesticide in banana field

Banana is one of the oldest and most popular fruits which is cultivated throughout India. India ranks first in terms of area and output, cultivating at about 4,90,700 hectares with an annual production of 168,13,500 mt, accounting for around 17% of global demand. To maintain the banana field, there is a need for regular spraying of micronutrients, fungicide, herbicide, and pesticide over the plant. Due to these continuous processes, there is a high demand for laborers. But pesticide spraying is an agricultural process that is both tiresome as well as hazardous to the person who is spraying it. Hence there is a need to automate the spraying process without human invention for reduction of labor cost, wastage of pesticide, and contaminants entering into the natural environment. An intelligent vehicle is designed and developed for spraying pesticides in the banana field. The vehicle is battery operated whose length and width are 3ft and 2.5ft respectively. The vehicle is run by a DC geared motor whose operations are controlled by the Arduino microcontroller board. The linear and rotational motion of the vehicle has been done with the help of the Arduino board. The vehicle stops after sensing the plant by ultrasonic sensor and pesticide is sprayed. The vehicle traverses through the field automatically and sprays pesticides with the help of the sensors connected to the Arduino board. A suitable sprayer was chosen which sprays the pesticide over the plant on both sides of the vehicle after sensing the plant. The vehicle turning is done by rotating the wheels in the opposite direction. At the end of the row in a field, the vehicle leads to a 90°-point turn, after which it moves some distance and again takes a 90° point turn for entering into the next row of the banana field. The vehicle movement is repeated until the completion of the spraying process in the entire field. The design and development of an intelligent vehicle for spraying pesticides in the banana field were completed and tested successfully.