Weeds compete with the crop for water, light, nutrients and space, and therefore reduce crop yields and also affect the efficient use of machinery. Chemical sprayer is the most popular method to eradicate weeds but has cause hazardous to the environment, crops and workers. A smart sprayer is required to control the usage of chemical weedicides at the optimal level. Thus an on-line automated sprayer is introduced to the Malaysian farmers to locate in the real time environment the existence and intensity of weeds and to spray the weedicides automatically and precisely. The purpose is to reduce wastage, reduce labor, reduce cost, control environment hazard and to attract younger generation to be attracted to agricultural sector.

The application of computer and machines for agricultural production has been one of the outstanding developments in Malaysian agriculture especially in overcoming labor shortages in Oil Palm plantations. The automated sprayer system developed at Universiti Putra Malaysia, uses web camera with combinations of electromechanical system, sensor system, controllers, wireless data communication and software. During the start of the spraying operation, the web camera will initially capture the image of weeds and analyzed the red, green, blue (RGB) value in terms of computer pixel. These values will be used as the reference RGB values to compare with the values of the RGB of weeds captured real-time during the spraying operation. The sprayer nozzle will turn ‘on’ or ‘off’ depending on the percentage or intensity of green color pixel value of weeds. The Normally Closed (NC) valves were installed on the sprayer nozzles for the ‘off’ un-operated operation. The valve will open the nozzle/s when the camera detected the presence of weeds. The Normally Open (NO) valve was mounted at the tank to open or by pass the liquid back to the tank. This was to avoid the high-pressure build up in the main sprayer line.