Objective:  1.      Optimize Water and Nutrient Delivery Efficiency.  2.      Enhance Plant Growth and Health.

Brief Description: Although there are a lot of hydroponics products in the market, but he variety of plants in those system doesn’t vary. Most of the hydroponics systems in India rely on only one type of fruit/vegetable in the same system. Novel ideas are required for growing different plants in the same system to increase the productivity of indoor and organic farming. With the help of our system of hydroponics, we can grow variety of plants whose growth depends on different level of nutrients required. a) The water needs to be pumped only once to the topmost shelf, and after that, it can just flow down with the help of the bell siphons installed in the system after properly wet each shelf. b) The nutrient levels decrease towards the bottom; hence different variety crops can be placed in the same system where plants with higher nutritional needs can be placed on the upper shelves and with lower requirements on the lower ones.

Outcome: Research Publication is processed

Scope of Implementation: This technology may be implemented in agriculture industries and also in household applications.

Cost: INR 25000 (Approx.) without labour charges.

Objectives:

1.      Automatically monitor and regulate temperature and humidity in agricultural environments.

2.      Ensure that plants receive optimal light levels for growth by dynamically adjusting artificial lighting.

3.    Maintain optimal nutrient levels in the soil or hydroponic solution to promote healthy plant growth.

Description: A desktop garden is a collection of plants located on your desk.  Benefits of desktop gardens in our workspace will include reduction of stress, increased positivity, improved air quality, boost creativity, and a more desirable workspace.  A desktop herbal garden can really improve our work environment by improving environment in a room. Plant provides us with almost all the basic needs for survival but we are unable to provide plant with its basic needs like water, non-polluted oxygen and as a result plants are unable to survive. 

Here automation for a desktop gardening which is, based on the requirement of water for a particular plant we are providing water by analysing the old data available for the same plant to get threshold value data. For this automation we are using a soil moisture sensor, a micro-controller (such as Arduino), a GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) module and a cloud server for storage, analysis and finding pattern/trends for healthy growth of the plant.

Outcome: Conference paper is accepted.

Introduction: Farmers in India are having difficulties due to the conventional manner of farming, which involves utilizing inefficient agricultural equipment, which takes a long time and increases labour costs. Small land holding makes individual ownership agriculture machinery uneconomic and operationally unavailable. Such the goal of this research is to improve seed sowing by employing a multipurpose seed sowing equipment. The basic goal of the sowing process is to insert seed in the appropriate location relative to other seeds in each row at a specific depth and cover it with soil. This machine will be beneficial for vegetable growing farmer especially for small farmer who have not proper tool options for growing vegetables. Hence, they give a lot of labour cost during seeding operation to workers.

Till now, in all the manual seeder machine are different type of seed plates & different seed hopper is used for different type of seeds, but we have designed and developed the seed plate in such a way that we can use only one seed plate for different type of seeds. And through the same seed plate we can deliver seeds in different rows. That’s way we will not need number of seeds plates and seed hopper to deliver seeds in different rows. In our system, both of seeding operation option is available for small and large size seeds. And also, in which large size seed hoper is available so farmer can up to 2-3 kg seed putting one time in seed hoper. Adjustable tine depth and row adjustable option is available. Low costs of this machine compare to another manual seeder market products. Maintenance cost is low.

Objectives:

1.      Enhance Efficiency and Reduce Manual Labor.

2.      Increase Seeding Precision and Uniformity.

3.      Different size of seeds processed with single seeder plate.

Outcome: Under Commercialized process

Scope of Implementation: This is an open technology. Any company, who would like to manufacture it, may contact us and the same would be shared with them.

Cost: 18000 (Approx.) without labour charges.

A multiponics system has been developed and fully functioned. It consists of Aeroponics, Aquaponics & Hydroponics. Fish and plants are in healthy condition since the system has come in operation. It has also been automated to pump the water from aquarium to plants root. Waste of fish is fruitful for plants as bacteria comments ammonia to nitrate.

Status: Patent application in progress.

Introduction: Paddy-Wheat crop rotation is mostly adopted in Northern India. In Punjab, according to experts, during the Kharif (summer) season of present year, paddy has been grown over 27.89 lakh ha area approximately with a production of above 200 lakh tons. More productivity means higher stubble volume. “When more stubble is burnt, it will emit more smoke,” said an official of the pollution control board. On an average, for every 4 ton of wheat or rice, nearly six ton of straw is produced which shows that a huge amount of residue is available for disposal every year. The total yield of paddy straw in a combine-harvested field is about 1-1.2 t/ha. This huge amount of straw is wasted annually either by burning in the fields or due to poor utilization which otherwise could contribute to the income of farmers. These crop residues, if left as it is in the field, create problem during sowing of wheat crop.  So, there is a need to manage the paddy straw in an economic and environmentally safe way. There are three options for managing the paddy straw viz: burning the straw in the field, incorporating the straw in the field and baling the straw. If rice straw is not burnt or incorporated in the soil then baling may provide an attractive, economical and environmentally safe option. There is wide usage of the straw in paper mills for cardboard manufacturing, packaging the materials, mushroom cultivation, burning in boilers, animal feed in drought regions etc. So, baling the straw and compacting it into small transportable size and shapes is required. The baler has been recently introduced in India for recovery of the straw from the field.

Objectives:

·         Design of a user-friendly Straw removal modified round Baler System.

·         Provide flexibility to compress waste paddy straw materials into small, manageable bales as economically viable option for sustainable management such as straw for animal feed, biofuel and other Industrial uses.

·         To prepare a single unit of Baler and Harvester such that harvesting and bales can be prepared in the field at the time of harvesting. 

·         These operations at the farm level can also generate rural employment opportunities and income generation to farming community.

Outcome: The reverse engineering design of straw removal round baler system has been designed. This reverse engineering design of baler will help to us for develop the modified design of straw removal round baler along with harvester machine.

Introduction: As per given three agriculture machines to us for improvements from Centre of Excellence for vegetables, Kartarpur (Jalandhar). Currently among the three of them, firstly we are working on the vegetable seed sowing machine (Fig 1.0 & 1.1) for making improvements in it. This vegetable seed sowing machine is being used in vegetable seeding in trays for the nurseries. As per the requirement we need to modification for the machine has compatible working with the traditional 9-row tray Show in (Fig.1. 7). For that purpose, we had to created modifications in Impression Bracket Show in (Fig. 1.8), Seed Tube Bracket Show in (Fig. 1.9), and Nozzle Bracket Show in (Fig. 10.0), in such kind of shape and design so it has adjusted with the conventional 9-row tray system.

Objectives:

1.      To make the machine functional.

2.      Modification as per required for better efficiency.

3.      Reverse engineering for future scope.

4.      Modified CAD design of machine with new concept.

Outcome:1. The machine has compatible working with the traditional 9-row tray shown in Fig.1.1.

 2. Machine improvement is completed and technology transfer is completed.

Introduction: Manual removal of pea grains from green peas is time consuming and laborious work. Because as one person can depod about 4 kg of green peas from pods in one hour. There is a large scope of green peas vegetables processing are very essential item of daily food. Among vegetables green peas occupy important place. Peas are very popular among people due to high nutrition value and good taste. So, we have made CAD File and a prototype design for automatic peas peeling machine. After finalizing the design, we will work towards developed this machine. This machine not only helps will be reduce the time for peelings of pea pods, but can will be also be used as a good opportunity for small farmers. By packing the green pea grain, they will able to get more income on investment.

Objective:

1.  Ensure a high rate of peeling with minimal damage to the peas, achieving a smooth and uniform peel.

2.  Automate the peeling process to significantly reduce the time compared to manual peeling.

3.  Minimize the loss of edible pea material during the peeling process.

Brief Description: Developing the Design of Peas Peeling Machine under Urban Farming Manual removal of pea grains from green peas is time consuming and laborious work. Because as one person can depod about 4 kg of green peas from pods in one hour. There is a large scope of green peas vegetables processing are very essential item of daily food. Among vegetables green peas occupy important place. Peas are very popular among people due to high nutrition value and good taste. So, we have made a prototype (fig) design for automatic peas peeling machine. After finalizing the design, we will work towards developed this machine. This machine not only helps will be reduce the time for peelings of pea pods, but can will be also be used as a good opportunity for small farmers. By packing the green pea grain, they will able to get more income on investment.

Outcome: Product is ready and Research publication is processed

Scope of Implementation: It can be used for small scale industries as well as in household applications.

Cost: 8000 (Approx.) without labour charges

People worked: Mandeep Singh, Fateh Singh. Sypervising faculty: Dr. Prabir Sarkar

Mechanical Engg. Department, IIT Ropar