Low-Cost Autonomous Harvesting Solutions: Prototyping and Validation of a Crop Cutting Robot

Abstract

This paper introduces a design, development, and field testing of the low cost autonomous crop cutting robot, which fits the smallholder farming markets. The proposed system is a combination of rotary cutting system, Arduino control architecture, and multi-sensor navigation system comprising of ultrasonic, IR, GPS, and IMU sensors. The overall cost of the fabrication process was kept at lower than INR 18,000 (~USD 220) and hence economically viable in resources constrained settings. Experiments in the field on a 600 m² paddy field showed a mean cutting efficiency of 91.4 % with a maximum of 95.2% on an ideal condition. The robot was able to cover an average area of 135m²/h, covering 450m² in 3.5 hours, which is around 32% faster than a human harvester. The power the system used was an average of 2.3 A, and this made it energy efficient with a battery of 12 V, 20Ah which was capable of continuously operating 3.5 hours on a single charge cycle. The accuracy of navigation was kept at under 10 cm lateral tolerance and obstacle detection at within 2.5 cm which was compared with the analysis thus showing a 17 % decrease in waste harvesting and removal of manual labor reliance. The findings support the fact that the suggested system provides an affordable, energy-efficient, scalable autonomous harvesting solution. This paper is a step toward the mechanization gap closing in small-scale farming and it offers a basis of developing AI-powered smart harvesting in the future.