# Assessment of Smart Mechatronics Applications in Agriculture: A Review
## 1 Introduction  
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 821 million people worldwide are underfed owing to current imbalances in the global food supply (REF). In particular, the 2023 Global Hunger Index (GHI) report showed that many African countries, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, and Mali, are experiencing severe hunger (REF). One of the main causes of low agricultural productivity in most developing countries is the lack of suitable agricultural machinery for field and processing operations. Machines and semi-mechanical systems are used in most European countries to maximize production, resulting in yields that have fed the rest of the world until now. Future agriculture in developing countries will require more advanced, fully automated mechatronics systems in order to expand the range of production from subsistence to commercial production, processing, packaging, storage, and delivery. This will reduce the human drudgery involved in farm work, allow more work to be done in less time, improve the efficiency and timeliness of field operations, and increase efficiency in post-harvest operations. By helping to meet the demand for agricultural output, smart mechatronics systems would also be very important for society as a whole [1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7]. In recent decades, industrial production and goods handling have been more efficient and less expensive, thanks in large part to automation and robotics. Similar changes have occurred in the agriculture sector over the past few years, with, e.g., self-guiding tractors and harvesters. In addition, GPS and vision-based systems are already being sold commercially. More recently, researchers have begun to experiment with autonomous systems that integrate field tasks, such as planting, spraying, moving, and weeding, withother essential tasks, such as thinning, trimming, and harvesting. For example, the use of robotic platforms that workers ride on in the fruit production sector has been demonstrated to be twice as efficient as workers using ladders. Lowering human error and handling problems through the use of mechatronics can increase output, e.g., by reducing damage to produce [8; 9; 10; 11; 12]. Because of their efficiency-related benefits and other advantages, smart mechatronics systems are becoming crucial in the agriculture sector, e.g., in aquaculture production, food processing, building environment management, irrigation systems, tractor and industrial systems, and grain drying. However, some key questions remain unanswered, including: Can production rates be increased further through the incorporation of smart mechatronics systems? Why have existing systems not addressed food security issues so far? A glance at the literature suggests that many earlier studies were more concerned with the modules than with the control systems in which these modules would function best, while mechatronics applications and impacts on agriculture were not taken into account. Some research papers have recommended modules for use in mechatronics that are not suitable for high performance and can lead to excessive setting, a short attention span, excessive multi-tasking, a risk of privacy invasion, a risk of limited learning, dependence, time wasted, and other diversions. Additionally, there is currently very limited use of mechatronics system technologies in agriculture in developing countries, where such systems can increase production rates and lower poverty rates. Considering the unanswered questions and research shortcomings mentioned above, there is a need for a thorough review of the current work in the area. The aim of this paper was therefore to determine the state-of-the-art use of smart mechatronics systems in agriculture, and to assess whether the agriculture sectors can benefit from emerging mechatronics system applications and intelligence systems. To achieve this goal, searches were performed in different scientific databases for relevant papers.