Robotic Seeding or Sowing System in Smart Agriculture

One of the most promising approaches to smart farming is the use of autonomous agricultural robots. Farms are increasingly being automated in order to save time and effort on repetitive operations and to boost yield by treating each crop separately in accordance with the precision farming approach. Seed sowing is a critical step in the farming process. It is labour intensive and takes a long time to complete. Different advance technologies like electronic seed metering system, pneumatic seed metering unit, seed chocking detection and alarm system, down force measurement, and uniform depth of placement system have been developed in recent years. However, planters and seed drills are hitched on to the back of the tractor to do the actual sowing and planting. This results in increased compaction of the farm field and increase in cost of fuel for prime mover. A seed sowing robot is a machine that helps farmers to save both time and money by accurately planting seeds in the ground. The main aim of this chapter is to give an idea about role of robotic seeding in smart agriculture, the designDesign aspects of different components of seed sowing robot, different navigation and localization methods, electronic components and sensors used in precision seeding robot, and economicEnvironmenteconomic perspective of robotic seeding.