Aurora, The Oil Palm Monitoring Robot by IPB University Students

Aurora (Autonomous Mobile Robot is a robot invented by IPB University Students from the Department of Agricultural and Biosystem Engineering; Yudha Putra Arisandy, Hari Agung Pratama, and Nissa Adiarifia. This robot can monitor oil palm ripeness level in the plantations and advise on the optimum harvest time.

“The robot was inspired by the issues on the field. Many farmers lost the harvest because they missed the harvest of palm bunches and inappropriate transportation. Farmers needed a monitoring device to have more accurate data thus improving oil quality and minimizing loss at harvest,” Yuda explained.

According to Hari Agung, Aurora works by determining the midpoint of the palm oil plants and measuring the length of the robot from each tree. The measurement is done simultaneously and sustainably. After that, a calculation can be made by finding the midpoint.

"The robot that we have designed will run by determining the midpoint of the plant with the help of lidar which functions to detect surrounding objects to determine the coordinates of the target destination. The lidar will know the relative distance from the robot and palm oil plants. After that, the robot determines the midpoint of some oil palm plants that are around the robot. This robot will be able to separate the mature fruit bunches / tandan buah segar (TBS) objects from raw TBS," added Nissa Adiarifia.

Through their work, Yudha and his colleagues won two awards, namely Champion II and Best Presentation at the National Scientific Writing Competition in a series of Agricultural Extension Planning of Some Innovation (AGRIXPLOSION) 2019 events held in Surakarta, November 16, 2019.

"We are very grateful to be able to get two awards at the same time. Namely Champion II and Best Presentation. This makes us even more excited to continue working. We hope that this tool can continue to be improved until it can truly benefit, especially for oil palm plantations in Indonesia, Yudha said.

Keywords: IPB University students, achievements, robots, oil palm