Aquarius: The Greenhouse Watering Robot
Aquarius is a large robot that I built for use in greenhouses where each plant needs to be hand watered several times a day. Ive been meaning to post it here for a while, but things keep getting busier.
This robot was born out of a cost saving brain storming session at my old job where we evaluated transgenic plants for efficacy against insects in a high throughput discovery pipeline in a large greenhouse system. It was typical for our group to have several thousand transgenic plants in our system at any particular time. Because these were newly transformed plants, they were very susceptible to desiccation, and they were very valuable so extra care had to be given to make sure they were given the correct amount of water. Aquarius was built and demonstrated that it was capable of quickly and accurately measuring the soil moisture in each pot, calculate the correct amount of water to give the plant and then dispense that amount of water. Aquarius did all of this simultaneously on both sides without slowing down.
Of course the thing that we find the most important is that Aquarius uses two Propeller chips for its main brains
More information, pictures, etc. is on our website: http://dorhoutrd.com/aquarius_robot
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Comments
:thumb:
I have the same question. I can see a "feeler wire" brushing along the moisture sensor(?), but what's the mechanism of fingering the moisture content?
For the soil moisture sensors, all of the electronics are in the robot. The sensor whiskers make contact with the sensor thats in the pot that then completes the circuit and measures the amount of water in the soil. The sensor itself is dumb. This both saves a lot of money and makes them autoclavable, which is really important in a transgenic greenhouse where everything has to be autoclaved. The important end of the moisture sensor or sensor bulb is normally buried at the root zone and is as hard as concrete.
In the unedited video you can hear the solenoid values on the robot opening and closing, but the buzzing from the lights and ridge vents would have made the video unpleasant to watch. You kind of tune it out while youre working in there, but its really annoying coming from your computer.
One of the cool things is that Aquarius uses a dynamic power distribution system with regenerative breaking to adjust the amount of power each wheel received 10 times per second. This allows it to have a slow consistent speed even fully loaded (~500lbs) and while going up and down the floor ridges. You can even jump onto one side of it and it doesnt even blink.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Hi jdolecki, Yes, Aquarius has the capability to remember where is was when it ran out of water, refill itself using a refilling station and pick up where it left off. The refilling station was never built, but it was actually a really simple concept/ device that the robot controlled.
Dave
2nd that.
Seriously cool.
Well done!
-MattG
Extra credit awarded!
Excellent job all around vanmunch! Lots of utility, well-designed, scaleable, and really inspiring!