IIT Kharagpur designs robotic system to identify diseases plaguing plants

    Kolkata, Oct 8 (PTI) IIT Kharagpur has designed a
robotic system capable of identifying the diseases plaguing
plants through camera-captured image analysis.
    The robotic system consists of a tracked vehicle
suitable for negotiating rough terrain field, a device mounted
on the tracked vehicle capable of holding the camera and
pesticide spraying nozzle, a pesticide spraying module, and
camera-based vision module, an institute spokesperson said on
Thursday.
    Prof D K Pratihar, from the Department of Mechanical
Engineering who is leading this innovative project said, "Our
device can detect the plant diseases using camera and image
analysis and consequently remove it."
    He said this will help the farmers detect the disease
accurately in their plants.
    Again use of such a device instead of manual operation
of spraying pesticide will protect the farmers from related
probable health hazards, Pratihar said.
    Talking about the potential of such technologies IIT
Kharagpur Director, Prof V K Tewari, an expert in farm
machinery design and precision agriculture said, "the
government is giving a major boost to innovative rural
livelihood technologies. Such technologies need to be taken
from the lab to the land."
    The device has been fabricated by a Mumbai-based
company.
    The developed robotic system is a battery-driven one
and once fully charged, it will be able to perform its duty in
the field for about two hours.
    The robot will be operated remotely using buttons
placed on a control panel and thus, a specialist technician
may not be required for operating the robot in the field.
    "We will soon resume the final assembly of the robotic
system and field testing as we are recovering from the present
COVID-situation. We have further plans in the future to make
this robot intelligent," Prof Pratihar said.
    The system has been designed under the project
"Development of autonomous multipurpose agricultural robotic
platform funded by the Ministry of Electronics and
Information Technology and run by Centre for Development of
Advanced Computing (C-DAC) Kolkata as the nodal implementing
institute along with IIT Kharagpur, BAU Ranchi and KCT
Coimbatore. PTI SUS
RG RG

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)