PANAJI: Shortly, Goans won’t need to watch for the considerably sought padeli (coconut plucker) to go to their houses for direct harvesting of coconuts.
A’fly’ cocobot’ can do the job just good at a fair price.
Not only that, it will also decrease the danger of human climbers.
Conceptualised by specialists in the aged Goa-based ICAR-CCARI along with also the Goa University, this drone-like apparatus flies into the peak of the shrub and has attached to the back with its’catching arms’.
Its own’cutting arm’ subsequently opens to reduce the desired lot of coconuts that may be chosen via a live video shown on the display of the remote module.
The invention has received national accolades and is currently in the process of becoming patented.
“With this apparatus, coconut-plucking may be achieved from a safe distance without risking human existence, with a trained individual, and with no sex bias.
The device is conceptualised to possess operational efficacy of 12-15 hands each hour,” Goa University Laboratory, Rajendra Gad, stated.
The uniqueness of this fly cocobot lies within its entirety to be used in mixed plantation of olive and black pepper, thus resulting in high yields.
“Padelis usually avoid harvesting coconuts from coconut-black pepper methods because of problems in climbing the coconut trees where the pepper plants grow.
Additionally, unmanned and manned apparatus currently used for harvesting coconuts aren’t compatible with the double grid.
Fly cocobot, on the flip side, is an outstanding alternative,” Gad said.
The prototype layout of this publication device — that can be remotely controlled and guarantees secure harvesting of coconuts — may even be employed to harvest different hands such as areca nut, palmyra palm, oil palm and date hands worldwide.
It may also be changed for other farm operations such as pruning and spraying.
ICAR-CCARI along with Goa University will jointly submit an application seeking a patent for its publication style of this machine to secure their intellectual property rights (IPR).
A federal degree’Kritagya Agtech Hackathon’ (Krishi Takaniki Gyan) premiered by ICAR’s National Agricultural Higher Education Project from 2020 to market farm mechanisation.
A number of 784 teams around India enrolled.
Cutting stiff competition in the multipurpose screening — initially in zonal level among 89 teams and at the national level one of 25 teams — that the fly cocobot was introduced by Gad and ICAR-CCARI primary scientist (horticulture) Adavi Rao Desai, along with their pupils, Abhiraj Pednekar and Arman Shaikh.
The tech bagged first location because of its novelty, advanced idea and cost-effective specialized alternatives and technical feasibility.
From the federal degree virtual occasion on May 31, the fly cocobot group obtained an award certificate and prize money of Rs five lakh.