Towards the development of a task oriented robotic assistance in vertical farming

Abstract

This paper focuses at the planning of a robotic assistive system in a modular vertical farm facility. Smart vertical farms are designed particularly for indoor systems with artificial environment control covering a small area of land but utilizing dimensions through vertical height. A layout of a proposed vertical farm is presented with a 4-Degrees of Freedom (DoF) robotic manipulator to cover three major tasks. The Task Space Locations (TSLs) are identified based upon the transplantation of the seedlings from the seedling tray into the pots of the hydroponic system. The prescribed tasks are simulated for a 4-DoF Kinova manipulator within the design vertical farm environment using Robot Operating System (ROS). It is also planned to develop a work cell for experimental validation of the planned assistance.