Camera-in-hand robotic system for remote monitoring of plant growth in a laboratory

A remote controlled robotic arm has been designed and fabricated for the purpose of remote monitoring of plant tissue growth in research projects conducted by Plant & Food Research Limited, New Zealand. The robotic arm consists of a light weight aluminum tubing with low voltage, high torque servo motors providing the movements for the various joints. The arm can swivel 180 degrees on its base. A compact colour zoom camera, on a pan and tilt mount, is fixed to the end of the arm. Customised Visual Basic software has been developed to control the arm through a servo control board. The software can capture the plant images, including video sequences. The position of the arm and all camera operations can be remotely controlled, either from the GUI on the PC screen, or through a joystick. The arm can be programmed to move to predefined positions at set times and capture images automatically without the need for human input. The entire system has been made wireless using Zigbee transceivers. The system has been successfully tested in a laboratory environment.