Robotic Weeding Machine for Leaf Lettuce Crops

In large-scale lettuce farming, farmers do not have an economical and sustainable method to control weeds and prevent them from emerging and competing with their crops. They rely on costly and tedious manual weed removal. The robotic weeding machine prototype consists of a pneumatic piston, stepper motors, an Arduino for control of actuators, and a laptop for the graphical user interface and software. The system uses parts created using computer numerical control for precise and accurate positioning of the weed removal apparatus, which is controlled with software for physical positioning corresponding to the user input. The user is provided with an easy-to-use graphical user interface on a touchscreen laptop for weed selection. The prototype and software have been constructed to be compatible with sponsor-owned weed-lettuce discrimination software to maintain continuity with the eventual mission, an autonomous weed identification and removal robot for lettuce fields.