System

The present invention refers to an autonomous robotic system for the purpose of combating harmful insects in greenhouses and assisting plant pollination. The insects in question, manage to enter greenhouses from any opening and rapidly multiply with devastating consequences for our crops.

Until now, combating these insects was done primarily with the following methods.

A) Chemically, with the use of insecticides

B) Deterring, with insect proof nets

C) With beneficial insects and

D) with insect population control traps As can be seen, the abovementioned approaches have numerous disadvantages such as the burden of crops with chemicals (insecticides), their low efficiency and, in some cases, the great economic costs.

As far as the pollination is concerned, it was done either with a small vibration machine (the machine touched the plant flowers and the vibrations ejected the pollen into the surrounding area), or with handheld sprayers where a worker sprayed the flowers with a mixture of water with a hormone, or with bees. Our goal is to find a way to deal with harmful insects and to help pollination in greenhouses in the most natural way, with high efficiency and with as low as possible operating costs.

The autonomous robotic insect control and pollination system of the invention is essentially a self-propelled vehicle consisting of the main chassis (1) (figure 1) on which there are the wheels, the electric generator, the steering and the central processing unit (computer) that will autonomously propel our robot with the proper navigation system. On this self-propelled vehicle we place a suction pump (2) figure 1 on the rear of the chassis, and a blower (3) on its front. Both the suction pump and the blower are power by the electric generator of the vehicle.

The outlet of the blower is connected to two telescopic tubes (4) in figure 1 which are perpendicular to the chassis (perpendicular to the ground) and have a vertical air outlet (8) (figure 1).

The suction pump inlet is also connected to a telescopic tube (5) figure 1 which is installed perpendicular to the chassis (perpendicular to the ground) and which at the upper end has a funnel (6) figure 1.

This funnel has a strong illumination inside (7) (figure 2) while its internal walls are covered with pheromones.

The telescopic tube (5) connected to the suction pump (2) has at its base a bag for collecting the insects

When in operation, our autonomous robotic system moves parallel to the plants' rows of the greenhouse.

When our robotic system is placed in operation, air exits forcefully from the vertical slot (8) of the telescopic tubes (4) connected to the blower (3), forcing any insects on the plants to begin to fly.

As our system moves, a number of plants have passed the back of the chassis that carries the suction pump (2) with the telescopic tube (5) and the funnel (6). So any insects (now flying) are attracted by the powerful light (7) of the funnel (6) and by the fact of the existence of pheromones and are sucked by our system.

These insects are collected in an insect collection bag.

At the same time, because of the air coming out of the telescopic tubes (4) the flowers of the plants vibrate so that their pollen disperses into the surrounding area, and is transported to adjacent plants, as we desire.

In this way, we achieve in a very natural way the control of harmful insects in greenhouses as well as their optimal pollination.