Robot design for applications in intensive agriculture

Many agricultural operations, like precise fertilization, plant disease detection, spraying and selective harvesting, could be routinely performed by robots. In this paper some preliminary results are presented about the design and the realization of a multipurpose low cost robot devoted to agricultural applications and particularly minded for working in greenhouses. The proposed manipulator is a structurally simple but reliable device that can operate in high level of automation greenhouses. Some details about the mechanical design of the manipulator are reported and topics related to a vision based control of the robot are discussed.