Review on: Role of robotics in horticulture

Abstract

A robot is an automatic device that performs functions normally ascribed to humans or simply a machine in the form of human. It is a machine that senses the environment, processes and responds to the sensor’s information with a computer command. As labour is a major cost for horticulture where nearly 50% of production costs for fruit is only for hired labour, intensive horticultural crops require much more skilled labour than broad scale agriculture. Hence, there is a need for efficient utilization of robots in the field of horticulture. Some of the types of robots used in horticulture are Demeter, robot for weed control, fruit picking robots, drones, forester robot, robot suit and vitirover solar robot. These robots are used in horticulture for weeding, crop scouting, micro spraying, irrigation, selective harvesting, sorting and packing, parks and golf courts, polyhouses etc.