DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF UNMANNED GROUND VEHICLE FOR AUTOMATED ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING OF LOW-HEIGHT TUNNEL FARMS

Abstract

Agricultural machinery is an essential tool for improving agricultural production per unit area. It helps farmers to grow more crops in less time and with greater efficiency to meet food security for exponentially growing population. Tunnel farming is an agriculture technique in which the crop is grown in a long row, covered with plastic sheets to maintain favorable environment for crop growth while minimizing environmental and biological hazards. Tunnel farms are divided into low height tunnel, high tunnel, and walk-in tunnel. It is important to monitor tunnels for temperature and relative humidity because these two factors promote disease and pest attack. In low height tunnels, it becomes difficult to physically monitor temperature variations, humidity variation and pest or disease attack. Therefore, it is required to develop suitable solution to this problem which can be provided in the form of small, unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) equipped with necessary sensing devices. In this study, a small UGV having camera, temperature and humidity sensors was developed and evaluated at four different sites. These sites included lemon orchard, research farms, main boulevard and field farm. The temperature and humidity reading were recorded at 8:00, 11:00, 14:00 and 16:00 a day on 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 ft. length from field boundary. In lemon orchard temperature is minimum (240C) and humidity is maximum (69%) at 8:00 AM. In the evening at 2:00 PM temperature was maximum (390C) and humidity was minimum (45%). In research farm temperature was minimum (280C) and humidity was maximum (65%) at 8:00AM. In the evening at 2:00PM temperature was maximum (430C) and humidity was minimum (40%). In Kfueit boulevard temperature was minimum (250C) and humidity was maximum (69%) at 8:00AM. In the evening at 2:00PM temperature was maximum (400C) and humidity was minimum (46%). In Progressive farmer farm temperature was minimum (300C) and humidity was maximum (69%) at 8:00AM. In the evening at 2:00PM temperature was maximum (430C) and humidity was minimum (46%).