Estimating Crop Water Needs Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Andalusian scientists of the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (IAS) -part of the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC)- and the University of Córdoba (UCO) are leading a campaign of measures in the USA to estimate crop water needs using their own system of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) equipped with thermal multispectral cameras.

In this case it is not only a case of cooperation in the scientific field. According to Pablo J. Zarco-Tejada, one of the participating researchers, ‘is a work also related to private companies (through the program of research result transfer of the University of California to agriculture companies). The companies interested in this technology are AgriWorld and Paramount, the two largest pistachio and almond producers in the world'.In collaboration with the University of California (and thanks to an invitation from the Vice-President of such university for a project led by Dr. David Goldhamer) will be conducting flights over experimental plots with different crops, some of them being the largest pistachio nut crop in the world, as well as over almond tree and vineyard crops spread across the State of California. This system allows you to know the ideal time to water the crops, saving water, and it can even be used to detect situations of water waste or water leaks in the irrigation system. The method has been used in more than 600 flights made between 2007 and 2009 in wheat, corn, peach, olive, orange and vineyards fields in Spain.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) equipped with thermal multispectral cameras. (Credit: Image courtesy of Andalucía Innova)

The system is based in small unmanned planes which can fly between 50 minutes and 2 hours and explore up to 1,000 hectares at an altitude of 300 m. above the ground. ‘The planes are equipped with a GPS system that continuously informs of its location to a base station from which the platform is operated and its mapping is observed' Dr. Zarco‑Tejada explains, a researcher of the CSIC leading the project of Cordoba Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (IAS).

'Moreover the aerial robot flying plan can be updated in real time' J.A. Berni said, researcher who has Developer the UAV remote detection integrated system. Planes, which fly above crop fields at an altitude of 150 to 1000 m., are equipped with a thermal camera and a multispectral one. The former delivers the temperature of the surface vegetation and after a series of calculations based on crop transpiration models, it detects water stress vegetation.

The most advanced available system

'There are unmanned aerial vehicles in some countries, mainly in the military sector. In civil applications we can say that our unmanned platform, together with the multispectral and thermal cameras for remote detection, is the advanced one in the market now, fully equipped and fully operative', Professor Zarco-Tejada added.

The idea of these new systems is part of the project on controlled deficit irrigation called CONSOLIDER-RIDECO, led by Professor Elías Fereres Castiel in which researchers from all over Spain are working. Fereres, through the University of Cordoba and the Sustainable Agriculture group of the CSIC, has been collaborating for over 20 years with the University of California at a scientific level.

The international participation of this type of groups specialised in unmanned aerial robots for studies on water needs is scarce. This is what precisely makes this Project particularly interesting for several companies and bodies in and outside Spain', ‘specially for countries or areas with Mediterranean climate where water is scarce'.

Satellite Navigation Steers Unmanned Micro-Planes

An unmanned aircraft system guided by satnav has been developed within ESA's Business Incubation Centre to provide rapid monitoring of land areas and disaster zones. The planes have already helped Spanish farmers in Andalusia to fight land erosion.

The German start-up company MAVinci has developed the new system that uses autonomous micro-air vehicles (MAVs) with a wingspan of less than two metres, to inspect land areas.

"At the moment, the remote-sensing market uses mainly manned aeroplanes," explains Johanna Born, CEO of MAVinci, "but they are expensive and not always available.

"Our MAVs are cost-efficient, available at short notice and easy to use for surveillance of development areas, construction sites, disaster zones and waste disposal sites, just to mention a few.

"They can carry visual and thermal cameras or other customer-specific measuring equipment."

Developed at ESA's Business Incubation Centre

MAVinci is hosted by ESA's Technology Transfer Programme Office at the Business Incubation Centre Darmstadt, Germany. Here, ESA engineers provide expertise on attitude-determination algorithms and exploiting satnav data.

ESA's optical lab at ESTEC in the Netherlands also helps MAVinci with the calibration of their optical camera.

A MAVinci micro air vehicle (MAV) is inspected before taking off. (Credit: MAVinci)

"The principles for the attitude determination of satellites and for autonomous aircraft such as MAVincis are identical, only the scale is different," says ESA Flight Dynamics Engineer Michael Flegel.

"Where a satellite might use the measured direction of the Sun, Earth or of known star patterns, the MAV aircraft will use the local magnetic field direction, the direction of 'down' and similar local quantities.

"Obtaining meaningful information from the data is an art and the expertise can be applied to both satellites and spacecraft alike."

The autopilot controls the aircraft from takeoff to landing, and uses satnav to follow a planned track, triggering the camera to image the target area. From the ground, the plane is followed by radio by a safety pilot who can take over the controls at anytime.

Helping to fight soil erosion in Spain

Erosion is a severe problem for land use and water supply in wide areas of southern Europe and northern Africa. According to UNESCO, erosion in Andalusian olive tree plantations results in the loss of an estimated 80 tonnes of soil per hectare per year.

Last October, one of MAVinci's micro-aircraft imaged several of the many erosion canyons in Andalusia to improve understanding of the dynamics of erosion and to find solutions for local farmers.

Using The Weather To Go Green

Engineers And Meteorologists Catalogue Weather Activity To Devise Green Energy Plan

Researchers installed weather stations to track the best locations for taking advantage of renewable resources. Tracking sunlight exposure helps pinpoint the ideal location for solar panels, and measuring wind speed and other weather data highlights the preferred times to open windows or vents for temperature control.

If you're looking for ways to bring your energy costs down you may want to take a look outside. The weather can save you big money if you learn how to work with it.

If professor Jan Kliessl is right this little computer will shave ten percent off University of California, San Diego's energy bill.

From athletic fields to utility poles to a rooftop robot -- Kleissl's engineering students track climate conditions across campus. The cool coastal conditions on one side and hot inland conditions on the other side of campus make UCSD an ideal lab for using weather to cut energy costs.

"I live in the residence halls over there and they don't have air conditioning so I kind of learned to use cross ventilation in the morning and in the evening to try to cool down the place," Roger Huang, UCSD student, told Ivanhoe.

That's one student anticipating the day's weather. Imagine what a 12-hundred acre campus could do with detailed data on temperature, wind speed, solar radiation, and rainfall.

"If you know what the prevailing wind is, you can use that as a way of cooling the building on hot days. You can use how much solar radiation there is to figure out how much the sun will heat the building up," Paul Linden, professor of Environmental Engineering at UCSD, told Ivanhoe.

The weather stations, powered by car batteries and solar panels, transmit data around the clock to a campus computer. That info will determine when to irrigate fields and open vents, where to place solar windows and how to design buildings to take advantage of weather patterns.

"Advanced homes now have their own computer systems that can open windows and close windows, pull shades down and regulate the air conditioning system," Jan Kleissl, assistant professor of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at UCSD, told Ivanhoe.

Kliessl hopes the merging of engineering and meteorology will provide a blueprint for energy conservation in your home and worldwide.

ABOUT SOLAR CELLS: In the future, more homes will most likely incorporate solar cells, also known as photovoltaics. Solar cells are made of semiconductor materials (usually silicon), which absorb sunlight's energy and stores it until it is needed to power something. Unfortunately, present solar cells can only absorb between 15-25 percent of sunlight's energy. This is because it only absorbs visible light; other kinds of light pass right through the cell as if it were transparent.

SENSORS MEASURE WEATHER CONDITIONS: A sensor is a type of transducer: an electronic device that converts energy from one form to another. For instance, microphones convert sound waves into electrical signals, while speakers receive the electrical signals and convert them back into sound waves. There are many different kinds of sensors, but most are electrical or electronic. A photosensor is an electronic component that detects the presence of various wavelengths of light: visible, infrared, or ultraviolet for example. The electrical conductance will change in response to the intensity of the light being detected, and this change is recorded by a computer. At UCSD, they are measuring conditions at many campus locations in order to learn the best places to place solar panels and other technology that will help them save energy.

Solar Energy: Cheaper Solar Concentrator With Fewer Photovoltaic Cells

A new solar concentrator design from an electrical engineering Ph.D. student at the University of California, San Diego could lead to solar concentrators that are less expensive and require fewer photovoltaic cells than existing solar concentrators. The graduate student, Jason Karp and his colleagues at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering presented the new solar concentrator in a paper in the January 2010 issue of the journal Optics Express.

While engineers have already developed high-efficiency solar concentrators that incorporate optics to focus the sun hundreds of times and can deliver twice the power of rigid solar panels, the new design offers potential new benefits. Existing solar concentrator systems typically use arrays of individual lenses that focus directly onto independent photovoltaic cells which all need to be aligned and electrically connected. In contrast, the new solar concentrator collects sunlight with thousands of small lenses imprinted on a common sheet. All these lenses couple into a flat "waveguide" which funnels light to a single photovoltaic cell.

A new solar concentrator design from an electrical engineering Ph.D. student at the University of California, San Diego could lead to solar concentrators that are less expensive and require fewer photovoltaic cells than existing solar concentrators. The graduate student, Jason Karp and his colleagues at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering presented the new solar concentrator in a paper in the January 2010 issue of the journal Optics Express. (Credit: UC San Diego / Jason Karp)

Karp built a working prototype with just two primary optical components, thus reducing materials, alignment and assembly. This solar concentrator is compatible with high-volume, low-cost manufacturing.

"The real reason that we are trying to do this type of concentrator is certainly for cost," said Karp in an interview after winning best poster at Research Expo 2010 at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. Karp explained that his design minimizes the cost for the optics associated with the entire system. One path to building optics very cheaply leads engineers to existing manufacturing techniques. The new solar concentrator is compatible with existing roll-to-roll processing techniques involved in fabricating large televisions.

Karp designed and built prototypes for the new solar concentrator in the Photonic Systems Integration Laboratory led by electrical engineering professor Joseph Ford from the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.

On April 15, Karp and his solar concentrator won the 2010 Rudee Research Expo Outstanding Poster Award at the 29th Annual Research Expo at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the California Energy Commission (CEC) provided some of the funding for this research.

Huwaei brings sub 6k Android Froyo Ideos Smartphone to India…

An Android Phone below Rs. 6000 ? Yes, it is possible and very much here. Huwaei has announced its newest Android based phone, which is expected to be in sub Rs. 6000 price range(We tried to find the exact pricing, but could not get…most of them report Rs. 5600..)

What this means is – Android Operating system has now come within reach of Millions of consumers, who could not afford significant costs of a smartphone earlier. Over last few months, we are already seeing many handset manufacturers bringing low cost (about Rs. 10-12k range) Android phones in the market and now with Huwaei bringing it to around 5-6k range, the market dynamics are set to change in a big way.

Huwaei Ideos – Cheapest Android Smartphone

At sub Rs. 6k price, Huwaei Ideos does seem to have packed quite bit of punch into the phone, starting with Android 2.2 which is currently on very few devices like EVO 4G, Nexus One and Droid.

Now, another thing you must be thinking – This looks like any other crappy Chinese phone – NO, it is not. Huawei has built this phone in collaboration with Google and consumers will be able to carry out updates etc directly to Android.

Huwaei Ideos features:

• OS:Android OS, v2.2 (Froyo)
• CPU:528 MHz processor
• GPRS/EDGE
• 3G HSDPA 3.6 Mbps
• Display Type: 2.8-inch TFT resistive touchscreen, 256K colors,240 x 320 pixels
• 3G connectivity
• 3.2 megapixel camera
• Wireless LAN
• GPS support
• Quad band GSM,3G HSDPA
• Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
• MEMORY microSD up to 32GB
• WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP
• microUSB v2.0
• CAMERA: 3.2 megapixel, 2048×1536 pixels, autofocus
• Messaging:SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM
• Colors:Black body – blue, red, yellow back panels
• GPS with A-GPS support
• Java Via third party application
• Google Search, Maps, Gmail, Talk
• MP3/WMA/eAAC+ player
• MP4/H.263/H.264 player
• Photo viewer/editor
• Adobe Flash support
• Standard battery, Li-Ion

Here is what I think – We will see most of the Local Indian Brands like Micromax, Zen, Karbonn etc coming up with similar Android based phones shortly and they will priced around Rs. 5k range.