Optimization of Robotized Tasks for the UV-C Treatment of Diseases in Horticulture

Abstract

Robots are used in several economic fields such as industry, hospitalization and agriculture. This latter, knows a real revolution concerning the robotization of its tasks because of their painfulness and/or dangerousness for humans as well as the desertion of human worker from the agricultural sector. Several research works interested to agricultural robots, aim to optimize plants treatment against diseases [Oberti et al., 2016] and harvesting [Southall et al., 2002] of crops. Recent researches in horticulture reveal that the use of type-C ultraviolet (UV-C) treatment against powdery mildew is a sustainable alternative to chemical treatment. The robotization of UV-C treatment in the horticulture field become a necessity due to the hardness of this kind of treatment manually. A new robot (called UV-Robot) is developed to ensure this treatment, while guaranteeing the safety of the human operator against the UV-C radiation. It is able to perform several levels of UV-C treatments by varying its speed when passing behind plants. The robot is wireless and uses a battery that limits the number of plants treated before it needs to be recharged. The scheduling of UV-Robot tasks represent a real challenge regarding the complexity of the system, the constraint concerning its battery capacity, the procedure of treatment and the dynamic level of diseases.