Design and Implementation of Robotic Arm Sprinklers for Unmanned Aerial Pollination in Date Palms

Date palms, are the main agricultural crop in the Middle East and South-west Asia, though they are widely grown in Northern Africa, Mexico and the United States. Date palms, scientifically known as Phoenix Dactylifera L. is a plant species where male and female inflorescences are on separate palms. In this case self-pollination is impossible and so cross pollination is required to produce fruits. Naturally, pollination in date palms occurs through wind and insects. Unfortunately, this method of pollination has proved unproductive and economically unfeasible, as it leads to the formation of triple parthenocarpic fruits, those fruits of no economic value. So it is necessary to artificially pollinate each female palm to sustain yield levels, enhance fruit set and make the production economically feasible for date farmers.

In Oman, currently farmers pollinate date palm trees manually. They climb up each and every palm tree and collects stamens from the male palm tree. One or more male date palm clusters are then directly placed in the female flower and ties them up with a light strip, which opens gradually with the growth of date. This is done to artificially pollinate female inflorescences to ensure economically sustainable yield, but the process is extremely tedious, unsafe and accident-prone. Mechanical methods of pollination are also being tried, but most systems are seen to be extremely unselective and environmentally destructive. In response to these concerns, a novel model of an automated system that can efficiently and accurately pollinate date clusters using a robotic spraying apparatus mounted on a computer vision android device is designed. The system shall comprise of a robotic arm and a processor controlled sprayer, directed by a computer vision system. The apparatus shall be mounted on an agricultural drone which can access hundreds of date palms in short time. The proposed system is expected to minimize risk of injury, significantly save manpower and deliver the pollens at target location in the right amount, thereby reducing environmental pollution and wastage.

This research was carried out as a two-year work under the RG program in the name of a project titled “A Novel Automated System to Optimise Date Palm Pollination using Computer Vision

Androids and Robotic Arm Sprinklers”, funded by MoHERI, Oman and completed in November 2022.