Abstract:
Detection of agro-chemical applied efficiency i.e. delivering of the correct dose of
agro chemicals to the target canopies, is done by droplet count and has become a
vitally important aspect in smart farming systems to achieve cost effectiveness and
the environmental benefits. There existing techniques are expensive, sophisticated
and come as integrated systems coupled into large machineries which are not
viable solution for the Sri Lankan context. Therefore, the present research
attempted to design and develop smart handheld tool for the said purpose. A device
was invented to perform data acquisition, storing, image processing and
interpretation of droplet count data to yield the application efficiency results. A
Raspberry-pi microprocessor and camera (8MP) were assembled to Arduino-nano
microcontroller through serial communication. Neo 6M GPS module was used to
record GPS coordinates relevant to the respective image data. The system also with
the user-friendly data uploading facility to local database including high capacity of
sampling rates. Field test was performed by a banana plantation Kamburupitiya
(6.066° N, 80.561° E) and potato plantation in Rathkarawuwa (6.798° N, 80.896°
E). Daconil and Mancozeb chemicals were sprayed into banana and potato plant
canopies by Knapsack sprayers. Chemical droplets count on plant leaves were
measured from 50 random sampling locations for the test by using both manual
and developed smart camera device. K-Nearest-neighbor interpolation method was
used to generate the chemical droplet distribution map for the selected area. Paired
T test was performed to assess the statistical significance. Results revealed that
there was no significant difference (p>0.05) of droplet count between manual and
the developed smart device method. Highly significant positive linear relationship
was observed for both Banana (R2=0.988) potato (R2=0.926) according to the
correlation analysis. Therefore, this study conclude that the potential possibility of
using the developed smart camera tool for successful quantification of agro
chemical droplet count from plant canopies.
