Weed Control for Better Crop Health Using AIoT

Agriculture is one of the major sources of economy in India. Quality of crops and optimal yield are possible amidst several challenges, such as climate change, water scarcity, and weeds, by means of sustainable agriculture. Modern science and technological advancements can be used to address these challenges and, hence, maximize agricultural productivity.

This chapter focuses on weed control using a combination of computer vision and IoT. Weed is an unwanted crop that affects the growth of the actual crop by absorbing soil nutrients, water, and sunlight. It is extremely important to remove the weeds. Targeted spraying to kill the weed has been the most effective solution. Such a system is costeffective and time-saving for large farms. The major concern in this method is the identification of the weed. There are several types of weeds, and identifying them among the actual crop is critical. False identification may lead to large economic losses. An efficient product for weed removal can be designed by combining the knowledge of IoT, image processing, and artificial intelligence (AI). AI and image processing aid in identifying and classifying the weeds. AI also helps in analyzing the risk of weed and the ineffective usage of weed killer, along with the amount of pesticide to be sprayed based on the type of weed. This chapter discusses sustainable agriculture, works carried out in the field of smart farming, the significance of technologies such as IoT and AI, and the design of a weed killer bot, which mainly uses image processing.

Keywords: Agriculture, Artificial intelligence, Bot, Crop identification, Image segmentation, Internet of Things, Precise targeting, Prototype, Sustainability, Weed.