A teenager in Kota, Rajasthan, has built a universal robot that helps farmers assess soil and crop health, water needs and detect pests. Aryan Singh, 17, built the agricultural robot at the school’s Atal Tinkering Lab, a central government initiative to help schoolchildren hone their building skills .

Aryan, the son of a farmer, spent four years building the robot, which won him the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar Award in the science and technology category. Aryan is the only boy from Rajasthan to win the award among nine boys and 10 girls from 18 states and union territories.

He received the award from President Dhurupati Murmu in New Delhi on January 22 this year. “I come from a family of farmers and grew up watching my grandparents and parents working in the fields. While studying in Grade 10, I came up with the idea of ​​developing a multi-tasking device and later developed a prototype that would reduce the number of tasks farmers have to do in the fields. workforce,” Aryan told PTI.

The boy sent his suggestions to the Atal Innovation Mission of NITI Ayog and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, the Rajasthan MP, and the then Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomer ), who all praised his equipment.

“Agricultural robots are capable of performing multiple tasks such as cutting, irrigation, loading, soil tracking, etc.,” Aryan said, adding that he has received more than 15 national and international awards and appreciation for his innovations.

Although it cost Rs 50,000 to build the prototype, “it will cost less in mass production,” he said. The boy and his tutor at SR Public School in Kota hope that the AgRobot will be available within a year.

The robot’s initial funding came from iStart, a flagship program of the Rajasthan government for start-ups. “They incubated me and I had the workplace, the lab and their support,” Aryan said. AgRobot is equipped with cameras to analyze the condition of crops. There is also a dropper on the top to help sow seeds and irrigate the fields, reducing farmers’ physical labor.

The robot is also equipped with a soil moisture sensor that helps farmers assess soil health and search for pests within it. He said the robot uses artificial intelligence and is trained based on different agricultural data. It can also be controlled remotely.

“Using IoT, we enable robots to be controlled remotely. For example, if you want to use a robot in Jaipur city and your crops are in Kota, you can just log into the app I developed and use it,” Aryan said.

The robot runs entirely on solar energy and uses pressure to generate electricity with the help of piezoelectric plates installed within it. “For example, the pressure created in the tires and panels generates electricity, which can be stored in batteries for use when the sun goes down,” he said.

“This creates an energy chain and once the solar energy is exhausted, you can switch to the piezoelectric panels. The robot does not need any external resources to work,” added the boy. Prakesh Soni, his mentor at ATL Soni said Aryan started building the prototype after his family faced difficulties farming, and the lab helped him turn his idea into an agricultural robot (AgRobot).

“Today, this device is so useful that his father sits at home and operates all the work in the agricultural field through the Internet, such as turning on or off the water pump for field irrigation, assessing the amount of water, and measuring the release of water based on the data.” Soni, a physics lecturer, said: “Detecting infected and pest-infested crops, monitoring and guarding fields, etc., as per the requirements of the specific crop.” Ankit Rathi, principal of SR Public School, said that for this talented boy, robots are just the beginning.

“It is in the prototype stage but will soon be incorporated into a business proposal and I am receiving offers to invest in agricultural robot manufacturing,” said Rathi, who is pursuing a BTech from IIT Bombay.

“Aryan started this project in 2020 and every year he works on improving and revising it,” he added.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from associated news agency – PTI)