Development and testing of automatic seedling extractor in robotic transplanter using mechatronics for nursery seedlings

Abstract Vegetable seedling transplanting is a time-consuming and laborious process. Utilizing cutting-edge technologies, and automation of transplanting will ensure efficient operations. A robotic transplanter featuring a single jaw-type gripper has been created and tested for the extraction of seedlings from nursery protrays. This system employs computer-based programming for Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC), to execute the seedling extraction using a gripper-type end-effector. The gripper removes each seedling separately from the first row of the nursery tray and releases them to the delivery pipe. Then the designed robot propels itself forward using DC motors and a PLC-based directional control unit. The PLC allows users to input the desired seedlings extraction through an LCD screen. The developed system was tested with vegetable seedlings including chilli and tomato, and resulting the seedling extraction rate of 3 seedlings/min. The results showed that for nursery-grown seedlings, the success rate, leakage rate as well as successful transplanting ranged from 91 to 95%, 7.6 to 13.9%, and 86.8 to 90.3%, respectively. Due to a lack of manual manpower for field operations, robotic transplanters could be the future of Indian agriculture.