Robotics in Plant Diseases Diagnosis and Management

Agricultural robotics is an automation technology involving development, fabrication, functioning, and application of robots as a cost-effective solution in the fields of agriculture, horticulture, forestry, fisheries, and livestock. Robots and machine learning are increasingly being used across different disciplines in agriculture including plant protection. In the field of plant pathology, robots can be employed for crop health monitoring, diagnosis of plant diseases, detection of plant pathogens, assessing disease severity, and to carry out precision management practices. A robot typically comprises of sensors, manipulators, control system, EOAT/end effectors, and actuators. Developing an accurate and reliable sensor is the first real step in the development of a robot plant doctor. Spectral sensors like visual (RGB), multi-spectral, hyper-spectral, thermal chlorophyll fluorescence, and volatile organic compound (VOCs) sensors are major ones exploited for plant disease detection and monitoring. Robots have not yet been used extensively for agriculture in India, let alone in pathogen management. Still, most of the potential robots are in the prototype stage, major advances are seen in the detection of leaf diseases of crop plants and automated spraying of pesticides. In this chapter, we discussed how robots are employed in agriculture in general and plant pathology in particular.