Moisture measurement in crops using spherical robots

This work presents an innovative solution for moisture monitoring in precision farming by using ground vehicles. The real innovation lies on using non-common robots such as spherical robots. This particular vehicle has turned out to be suitable for performing monitoring tasks in crop fields mainly due to its spherical shape, small size, low weight and traction system that do not produce soil compacting or erosion. These features allow the robot to perform measurements for intra-crop moisture. The work briefly explains the design of the robot as well as the results obtained from the experiments carried out at a cornfield when the crop was at its early stage, in order to build a geo-referenced water stress index map.