This intelligent robotic system aims to address the recurring challenges faced by farmers in identifying plant diseases and ensuring appropriate and safe pesticide application.

Revolutionising Smart Farming, a ground-breaking innovation in agricultural automation has emerged from the Mechanical Engineering Department of IIT Kharagpur. Under the visionary leadership of Prof. Dilip Kumar Pratihar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, a Semi-Automatic Tracked Mobile Manipulator cum Agricultural Robotic System has been successfully designed and developed by a group of PhD and project students. India Patent has also been granted to Prof. Pratihar, Pradeep Nahak, Atanu Jana, and others, for the same. This intelligent robotic system aims to address the recurring challenges faced by farmers in identifying plant diseases and ensuring appropriate and safe pesticide application.

While drone-based agricultural robots have gained popularity, they struggle to capture high-quality images of plant leaves due to the forced draught created during flight, resulting in noisy data. To overcome this limitation, the newly developed ground-based Tracked Mobile Manipulator uses camera-based image analysis for accurate disease detection, followed by automatic spraying of the appropriate pesticide.

Prof. Pratihar first presented the concept of this advanced agricultural robot during his invited lecture in 2018 at a National Seminar conducted by CDAC Kolkata, titled “Trends and Applications of ICT in Agriculture (TRACT).” Recognizing that agricultural terrains are neither completely smooth nor entirely rough, he proposed a Tracked Mobile Manipulator as the ideal solution. This system features a serial manipulator, resembling a human hand, mounted on a tracked vehicle—designed specifically for field navigation and precision tasks.

The development of this system, funded by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, not only aims to reduce the health risks faced by farmers during manual pesticide spraying, but also significantly enhances food quality and agricultural productivity. By minimizing crop loss due to diseases, it supports improved yield and cost efficiency, contributing positively to the Nation’s GDP.