Many\u00a0commercial agricultural\u00a0monitoring systems often taken the form of extensively-trained computer vision camera systems that monitor plant growth, and\u00a0baton-shaped sensors stuck in the soil\u00a0to measure conditions such as temperature or humidity. But these are often ill-equipped to monitor the more minute changes in plant and environmental conditions\u2014or else they are too expensive for many farmers to use on a large scale.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plant monitoring systems you can get at\u00a0Home Depot or Amazon are fairly expensive, and you have to go throughout the field and place them individually without them being able to\u00a0communicate,\u201d Hussain explains. \u201cAnd when they get smarter with communication, the price goes up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both KAUST\u00a0sensors rely on a low-power system that lasted\u00a0for an average of 151 days while logging data every two seconds during early lab testing.\u00a0This system consists of a\u00a0small rechargeable\u00a0lithium ion battery\u00a0and a programmable-system-on-chip with 256 kB of internal flash memory to record and store data. Bluetooth chips enable the sensors to transmit their data either\u00a0to\u00a0nearby drones or people with smartphones.<\/p>\n
First, the researchers\u00a0created a plant-wearable sensor\u2014made from polymer and thin gold metal film\u2014that has the flexibility to attach in any position on a plant. They tested this stretchable strain sensor\u00a0on both barley\u00a0and lucky bamboo plants during trial periods of several hours or days to show that they could detect even the most minute growth changes.<\/p>\n
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Second, the team created a 3D-printed\u00a0temperature and humidity sensor that can be dropped from drones in large numbers. This PlantCopter sensor was inspired by dandelion flower seeds and maple seeds that float through the air like miniature helicopters. It\u2019s a design that could ideally allow for widespread dispersion of the sensors with minimal effort, whereas the plant wearable for measuring plant growth would still have to be attached by hand.<\/p>\n
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An initial demonstration showed that the team could maintain a smartphone Bluetooth connection with the PlantCopter as it was dropped from a height of 50 feet\u00a0and landed on the ground. But the somewhat bolder vision of the PlantCopter has not yet been tested through a mass airdrop by drone.<\/p>\n
Still, the team aims to develop a drone with both sufficient battery life and some autonomous capabilities to perform such duties by April 2019. That timeframe coincides with a plan to conduct field trials in three countries: India, Sri Lanka and Zambia.<\/p>\n
All this talk of individual plant sensors may seem like small potatoes. But taken together, such sensors or similar solutions could add up to part of a much larger big data revolution sweeping through agriculture. Farmers will need as much fine-grained data as they can get about what\u2019s happening on the ground in order to boost productivity through a carefully-orchestrated dance of drones, robotic equipment and smart sensors.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy overarching objective is to collect big data and\u00a0infuse it with AI\u00a0so that drones can make real-time decisions like spreading fertilizer and pesticides as needed,\u201d Hussain says. \u201cMy vision is if productivity goes up by even one percent, I think that would feed more people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Stretchable plant wearables and\u00a0smart tags dropped\u00a0by drones aim to help give farming a big data makeover. The relatively cheap technologies for mass monitoring of individual plants across large greenhouses or crop fields could get field tests in three countries starting in 2019. The idea came from researchers\u00a0at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3603,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"amp_status":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Plant Wearables and Airdropped Sensors Could Sow Big Data Seeds","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[350,356],"tags":[126,76,201,222],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n