Nindamani the weed removal robot

Award🏅

Our project “Nindamani: The Weed Removal AgriRobot” won 1st prize🏅 in Autonomous Machines & Robotics category at NVIDIA’s AI at the Edge challenge.

Check out the articles on NVIDIA’s blog, hackster.io page, and New Scientist’s news letter

Note: Please do mention our title if you find this project helpful

Project Details

Nindamani, the AI based mechanically weed removal robot, which autonomously detects and segment the weeds from crop using artificial intelligence. The whole robot modules natively build on ROS2. Nindamani can be used in any early stage of crops for autonomous weeding.

In this following repository, you will find instructions for software installation and control mechanism for Nindamani robot.

Features:

• Fully ROS2 compatible
• Battery Operated
• Runtime upto 8-10 hours
• Robotics Arm based weed removal
• Weed detection accuracy upto 85%
• Easy to Operate

Software Specifications:

Hardware Specifications:

Packages

In this section we will install all the necessary dependencies in order to be able to launch nindamani robot:

• nindamani_agri_robot - integrate all launch node of nindamani robot
• rpicam_ai_interface - controlling the rpi camera with AI interface
• servo_control - controlling the servo motors with ROS2 interface
• stepper_control - controlling the multiple stepper motors with ROS2 interface

Installation on Jetson Nano Dev Kit

1. NVIDIA Jetpack SDK

• Download latest SDK image: https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/jetpack
• Completely Format SD card (should not contain any partition). Use Ubuntu default app Disks [Recommeded 64GB SD card]
• Copy ZIP(jetpack image) file to SD card: https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/learn/get-started-jetson-nano-devkit#write

  2. Prerequisites and Dependencies for TensorFlow

• Install Keras: sudo pip3 install keras
• Follow this instructions [official from NVIDIA]: https://docs.nvidia.com/deeplearning/frameworks/install-tf-jetson-platform/index.html#prereqs

  3. ROS2 (Dashing Diademata)

• Install ROS2 base: https://index.ros.org/doc/ros2/Installation/Dashing/Linux-Install-Debians/
• Make sure that you have colcon in your machine if you are installing from Debian packages. sudo apt install python3-colcon-common-extensions
• For adding additional packages use: sudo apt install ros-$ROS_DISTRO-<package-name>

4. Arduino

• Follow this repo to install Arduino on Jetson nano: https://github.com/JetsonHacksNano/installArduinoIDE.git
• To get Temporary access to USB: sudo chown <user-name> /dev/tty<usb> and sudo chmod a+rw /dev/tty<usb>
• To set Permenantly change USB device permission: http://ask.xmodulo.com/change-usb-device-permission-linux.html
• To control arduino from Command line Source:https://github.com/arduino/arduino-cli
• Clone this repo: https://github.com/AutoRoboCulture/Arduino-Jetson-nano-interface.git
• Place this repo in Arduino Folder

5. OpenCV 3.4.4

• Refer link: https://www.pyimagesearch.com/2018/05/28/ubuntu-18-04-how-to-install-opencv/

6. Wifi

• To setup default wifi connection(Intel 8265 NGW card) while bootup Source: https://desertbot.io/blog/how-to-add-a-dual-wifi-bluetooth-card-to-a-jetson-nano-intel-8265

Create ROS2 Workspace

• follow this steps:

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