A Robotic System for Transferring Tobacco Seedlings

Germinatin and early growth of tobacco seedlings in trays containing many cells is increasing in popularity . Since 100 % germination is not likely , a major problem is to locate and replace the content of those cells which contain either no seedling or a stunted seedling with a plug containing a viable seedling. Empty cells and seedlings of poor quality take up valuable space in a greenhouse. They may also cause difficulty when transplanting seedlings into the field. Robotic technology, including the implementation of computer vision, appears to be an attractive alternative to the use of manual labor for accomplishing this task. Operating AGBOT, short for Agricultural ROBOT, involved four steps : (1) capturing the image, (2) processing the image, (3) moving the manipulator, (4) working the gripper. This research seedlings within a cell-grown environment. the configuration of the cell-grown seedling environment dictated the design of a Cartesian robot suitable for working ov r a flat plane. Experiments of AGBOT performance in transferring large seedlings produced trays which were more than 98% survived one week after transfer. In general , the system generated much better than expected.