Using robotic systems during maintenance and tomato harvesting in hydroponics greenhouses can reduce costs and the number of greenhouse workers. In this study, according to the economic problems of greenhouses, an intelligent robot was designed to economize the agricultural operations in greenhouses. To do this, a farmer-assistant robot was designed and constructed which included a tracked chassis, an arm with 5 degrees of freedom and a controlling system. The performance of this project was evaluated for four tomato cultivars in a hydroponic greenhouse. The robot was used to minimize the pesticide consumption during the spraying operations, as well as to reduce the loss in tomato harvesting. With regard to precise control of the robot arm during the operation of hydroponic tomato pesticide spraying, consumption of agricultural inputs, including pesticide decreased significantly and tomato loss has reached its lowest level. Therefore, using such robot is useful for lower pesticide consumption and tomato harvesting in hydroponic greenhouses. This project can be optimized by using a low-cost machine vision system in hydroponic greenhouses.

• Mir Sina Mousavi
• Jafar Massah
• Keyvan Asefpour Vakilian
• Mohammad Reza Kamandar