Automation and Robotics for precision agriculture: state of the art and perspectives

Robotics and automation (R&A) in agriculture and, particularly, in high profit crops, mainly consist in ad-hoc machines able to perform one specific operation (sowing, transplanting etc.) obtaining high performances in terms of speed and work accuracy. However, in some specific contexts such as e.g. greenhouse productions, available tools are not sufficient to fulfil the demand of specialized machines where there is still a strong need of high level of automation machines that could move and operate autonomously in the production site. To cope with this request, recent researches are devoted to the development of autonomous robots modules able to perform a number of different tasks. In particular, autonomous robots could be adopted for localized high precision chemical applications, as well as to perform other operations such as products handling, mechanical weed control, precision fertilization and cutting. Aim of this paper is to discuss, also on the base of the recent results appeared in literature, future trends and application of robotics in protected crops.