Development of a Cartesian Robotic System for Horticultural Assistance

Agricultural development in Colombia with low-scale incorporation of technology prevents the standardization of basic activities such as planting, agrochemical supply, and crop control, among others, which leads to difficulties in decision-making and knowledge management in agricultural production in the rural sector. Considering the above, this proposal for a prototype for the development of a robotic system that allows the automatic management of a vegetable crop in the Instituto Superior de Educación Rural of Pamplona and that focuses its development on the automation of some tasks or cultural work of a productive project. The control system is completely embedded, that is to say, it does not need an external computer system to make the processing and decision-making of the robot, a flexible design is proposed with Cartesian movement in the X, Y, and Z axes; with adjustment to the work, area depending on the specific needs that are required, through the movement in the Z axis and with interchangeable gripper al-lows to collect environmental and soil variables in the crop, modifying its height according to the growth of the plants and also the supply of water or other products. This flexibility of the robotic system prototype allows it to be multitasking, with a resistant physical structure, a highly efficient hardware architecture (electronics and mechanics), and robust software that provides complete autonomy. In this case, the scalability of the robotic system for automatic crop management is an element of easy access to small and medium farmers.