Feasibility and Prospects of Robotics in Agriculture: A Review

Achievement of a sustained and equitable development is the main goal of any production and planning system. To keep up with the increasing human population and with the available arable lands, more food production will have to be achieved over the next 50 years. Agriculture and its allied sectors depend simultaneously on both the exploitation and conservation of natural resources. Their impacts on the environment need to be reduced such that it can continue to develop sustainable production systems. However, this is rarely achieved. In most of the hilly areas of developing countries, the resources essential to these sectors are threatened by rapid population growth, extreme poverty, loss of biodiversity, pollution of air and water, soil toxicity. In western countries, the adoption of robotics technology has already initiated. In future agricultural scenario, it is envisaged that this new and latest technology holds the key to new farming systems to increase yields and generate income while improving sustainability. Swarm of robots have the characteristics of being simplistic and low cost, so that they can be manufactured and deployed in mass without being overly concerned about their survivability. It is a growing industry being put to use in creative ways. The concept has been around for decades, but groups of small robots working in teams to complete tasks have come in handy on the conservation, sustainability and agricultural front. envisage