DESIGN AND ENVIRONMENTAL - BEHAVIOUR MODELLING OF A BLUETOOTH CONTROLLED PLANTER ROBOT
DESIGN AND ENVIRONMENTAL - BEHAVIOUR MODELLING OF A BLUETOOTH CONTROLLED PLANTER ROBOT
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Date
2014-12
Authors
AHMAD, KABIR
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Abstract
This research is aimed at the design and implementation of a Bluetooth controlled planter
robot. It involved a mechanical design, a Bluetooth control design, an implementation of
prototype and environmental behaviour modelling as well as validation of the robot’s model.
The design was optimized for planting maize as a case study in Zaria. In the mechanical
design section, several aspects, starting from selection of dimensions, materials to
production of complete engineering drawings were presented and the Plantbot was
constructed using the engineering drawings of the robot. In the design of the Bluetooth
control segment, detailed procedure from selection of Bluetooth module to design of
microcontroller relay driver were presented. The designed Bluetooth control system was
then interfaced with the mechanical part and the Plantbot was tested. The average speed of
the Plantbot obtained from the experiments was 30.70cm/s which is 85.26% of the designed
value (36cm/s). The depth of seed planting was 3cm which agreed with the recommended 2
– 3cm by Institute of Agricultural Research of Ahmadu Bello University-Zaria (2012). The
percentage of successful planting was 89.8% and percentage of successful planting of two
seeds per hole was 86.6%. The effective range of the Bluetooth control was 57.61m
(189.013 feet) i.e. 94% of design range. The MATLAB was used as system identification
toolbox to develop the environmental behaviour model of the Plantbot. The linear model of
the ARX structure (i.e. arx411) obtained showed the best fit of 83.47%. A transfer function
relating the speed of the Plantbot with the soil moisture content was then developed.
Description
A PhD Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
A.B.U Zaria in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of the Doctor of
Philosophy (PhD) Degree in Electrical Engineering
DECEMBER, 2014
Keywords
DESIGN,, ENVIRONMENTAL,, BEHAVIOUR,, MODELLING,, BLUETOOTH,, CONTROLLED,, PLANTER,, ROBOT.