Notes

Table of content
⦁ Introduction ……….3
1.1 Drone and its uses…….3
1.2Literature Review ……….4
⦁ Aims and objective……4
⦁ Methodology………5
3.1 Problem Domain Investigation………5
3.2 Requirement Engineering………5
3.3 Design and analysis………6
3.3.1 Image Processing………6
3.3.2 Quadcopter Design………7
3.3.3 Block Diagram (quadcopter) ………8
3.3.4 Electrical Diagram(quadcopter) ………10
3.3.5 System Activity Diagram………11
3.3.6 Flow Chart (system) ………12
3.3.7 Wireframe………13
3.3.8 Database Structure………14
⦁ System construction Strategy………15
4.1 Sensor and parts………15
⦁ Testing………18
⦁ Legal Issue………19
⦁ Resources Required………19
⦁ References………20
⦁ Appendix 1………22
⦁ Appendix 2………24









Introduction
Nepal, being an agricultural country, over 80% of the total population of country’s economy is dominated by agriculture. According to the reports provided by World Bank collection of development indicators, in 2016, the total agricultural land in Nepal reported was 28.57%. [Trading Economics,2020]. However, lack of resources, and facilities, planning are the main cause of unsatisfied yield. Recently, the quantity of the product cultivated in Nepal has drastically increased, but the quality has been decreased.
The farmers living in the rural area of Nepal are not getting proper education regarding proper management of the cultivable land as well as the crops. Due to this, the cultivation has been decreased radically. Lack of human resource and lack of knowledge are the main reason for less production. The farmers are not able to identify the main reason for this. The insect and pest have gradually deceased the quality of soil and the plants. However, in huge cultivable land, it is impossible to track all the record of insect and pest by the farmer alone. Therefore, the solution is yet to be found to solve this.
Drones and its uses
Different experts say that the use of drones in the agricultural field will directly help enhance the overall production of the crop. Drones are the one of most powerful transforming tools in the agricultural field. Drone allows farmer to increase efficiency in various aspect of farming. From area mapping, to crop management, insecticides and pesticides spraying and more. This method saves a huge amount of time and saves the amount of human resources required.
Drones are used for real time crop monitoring,
Drones are used for aerial view of the farm,
Used for soil monitoring,
Used for monitoring land topography.







Literature Review
Tripicchio et al., 2015 has published a paper discussing about the innovative approach to differentiate various field ploughing techniques through the usage of a drone with RGB-D sensor or laser scanners (Tripicchio et al., 2015). The paper also discusses about the suitability of radar images over optical satellite images for retrieving information on soil characteristics. Moreover, tests performed through the development of two different measurement algorithms, showed good results for analyzing soil roughness and ploughing techniques (Tripicchio et al., 2015).
Similarly, Kurkute et al., 2018 have purposed an idea about the development of agriculture drone with pesticides spraying mechanism, as a novel solution to reduce human efforts as well as health affects to farmers (Kurkute et al., 2018). The paper discusses about various drone systems and appropriate cost-effective designs for its effectiveness in the agricultural sector, alongside explaining about the expected results for future implementation (Kurkute et al., 2018).
Likewise, highlighting the progress of science and technologies in the present era, Ipate et al., in their paper have described Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) systems as the best technological replacements for resilient agricultural system in any country (Ipate et al., 2015). The paper includes theoretical and experimental framework to design exclusive quadcopter UAV having effective usage to analyze crop growth, crop production, dosage of pesticides, leaves culture and so on (Ipate et al., 2015).

Aims and Objective
Increasing the production of the crops and vegetables are the main motive of the farmer. The main motive of this project is to help the cultivators to track the problems faced during cultivation, track the number of insects and pests using drone.
⦁ Identification of cultivable land,
⦁ Identify the weather and quality of soil using camera assembled in drone,
⦁ Identify the disease and maintain high low amount of disease.
⦁ Find the overall health status of the crop.
To meet all the above aims, following steps will be taken.
⦁ Interaction with experienced farmers,
⦁ Thorough study about the frequent disease,
⦁ Proper testing


Methodology
Problem Domain Investigation:
The following are the methods to solve the existing problems,
⦁ Interview with the farmers: Almost all the farmers are busy with their farming for most of the time of the year. Many time situations do not appear according to their plan. Different kind of hustle can appear while farming which will result in huge loss. So, the only method to know about their existing problems is to get in touch with them and take a brief interview with them. This will gradually help find the problems the required solution.
⦁ Medicine Study: Internet resources and research paper are very reliable source in order to know the proper implementation of the of medicine.
⦁ Data collection: The most important method to find the existing problem is data collection. Different research papers are available in the internet. As a result, many on going problem domain can be found which are beneficial for resolving the problem domain.
⦁ Analyze the disease: After taking the shots from quadcopter camera, it is necessary to find the type of the disease which are currently present in the plant. Necessary precautions will be taken after the recognition of the disease.
⦁ Medicine Remedy: It is very important to produce the remedy for the plant which are currently infected with. After getting the information about the disease, it is an easy task to use the correct medicine.
⦁ Spray the medicine using drone after a successful testing of the medicine.

Requirement Engineering
Above mentioned methods are the smartest and efficient process in order to solve the existing problem. Thousands of people are required in order to track all the problem in a huge land area which takes huge amount of time. It is impossible for human to track the health of every crops which are planted. The drone has the easy access to most part of the field to track the health of the plant. A brief meeting with the farmers, agricultural department will be held to know the current situation of agriculture.



Design and Analysis
Agricultural drone, being the main motive of this project, quadcopter will be built. Since, it is easier for the quadcopter to fly even in a smaller area, agricultural drone is the smartest while achieving the aim. Simple type of camera will be used in the quadcopter which will help in taking motion or picture of certain area.
Image Processing
The main working method of this project is image processing. The quadcopter operating at certain height monitors and captures the footage of the agricultural ground. The image or the footage is uploaded into the system.
Different techniques used in this image processing are described below:
⦁ Image Accession: This is simply the process of adding the image into the system from some sources, either from hardware or real time camera. Scaling is the main process done in this process.
⦁ Image Enhancement: Image enhancement refers to the process of editing the image in order to make it brighter, or increase and decrease image contrast, and noise removal.

Image: Conversion to gray scale image.
(Image source: Google)

⦁ Image restoration: In this process, restoration of the degraded image will be done.
⦁ Color Image Processing: This part processes the processing of colored images as RGB.
⦁ Compression: Compression of the process of reducing the size of any image. This is very useful to save the spaces of database. If huge space is taken and uploaded into the internet, it may take longer time to load the server.
⦁ Segmentation: The term usually refers to divide something into other smaller parts. In image processing, segmentation means to divide the image into multiple parts. This will help to regenerate the boundaries of the image and will enhance the result of the project.
⦁ Recognition: After all the process is completed, this process assigns any name for the image. As per this project, final recognition will be done for the disease, pest and while monitoring the crops.


Quadcopter Design
The upper view of the X-shaped quadcopter is shown in the figure below.
Four brushless motors having the capacity of 1400kv will be rotating, getting the signal from control board. The motor will be connected to electronic speed controller (also known as ESC), ESC will have one output and two input cables connected to it. The output wire will be connected to the motors and the input wires will be connected to the battery and the ground station control board. Four propellers will be attached to the motor which will thrust up the quadcopter.

Image: X-Shaped Quadcopter Design
GPS will be attached to the quadcopter which will help smoothen the flight of the quadcopter. Any inconvenience situation like battery down, loss of signal will result in the crash of the drone. So, with the help of GPS, emergency landing after loss of signal or battery down will be possible.
Block Diagram

Fig: Block Diagram for Quadcopter design

The above figure shows the block diagram for quadcopter. Initially, there are three sensors attached to the control board. Four ESCs are connected to the control board in the Pulse-width modulation which will decrease the average power supplied by an electrical signal. Motors are connected to the esc which will give all the instruction as well as deal with the speed control mechanism. Additionally, GPS will be connected to the board to track all the motions of the flight.



Fig: Quadcopter designed (left), Quadcopter 3D print (right).
Note: This is not the final design. (Many parts are missing here which will be assembled soon).








Flow chart

Fig: Flow chart of quadcopter


Electrical Diagram Of quadcopter


Fig: Circuit Diagram of quadcopter

Above circuit diagram shows the working of the quadcopter which is discussed in previous section.


System Activity Diagram

Fig: Activity Diagram


Flow Chart

Process image in the above flow chart includes the following method:
⦁ Image Enhancement
⦁ Color image processing
⦁ Segmentation
⦁ Image recognition





Wire Frames



Fig: Adding Image to the system


Fig: Name of the disease and Its solution proposed by the system.

Database Design

Fig: Database Structure

System Construction Strategy
Sensors and Parts
Accelerometer

(Image source: Google)
Accelerometer is used to locate the position and orientation of the drone.




Magnetometer

(Image source: Google)
Magnetometer is used to calculate the field intensity of the earth.






GPS Module (M8N Module)

GPS help the quadcopter to fly along the desired axis. GPS helps the system where to fly and how to fly. Various GPS mode are configured after attaching the GPS module to the flight control board.
Altitude hold: Holds the same altitude without decreasing the altitude.
Position Hold: Help the drone to freeze at its current position.
Return to Launch: RTL function helps the quadcopter to return to its launch position if the signal is lost from the remote control.
Auto Take off: This function allows the drone to auto land at one touch.
Auto Land: if it is hard for the operator to control the quadcopter, Auto land function key can be pressed and quadcopter lands automatically.









Weather Sensor

Weather sensor module is used to measure the pressure and temperature of the surrounding.
Flight Control Board

Flight Control board are the main source of instructor for the quadcopter. This board controls all the operation within the flight





Transmitter and Receiver


Transmitter used in this quadcopter is shown in the figure above. It has 6 channel which is operated by the operator and sends the signal to the receiver connected to the flight control board.

Brushless Motor

Brushless motor revolves with the signal coming from the ECS with propellers help the quadcopter to fly.

Testing and Evaluation
After the completion of quadcopter, the control board must be programmed using a software called Ardupilot. The esc’s, motors, battery, remote control are tested. GPS should be installed in order to track the path of the drone. Live testing of the drone must be performed in order to use the drone for the first time. After the image is taken, it is manually read, and the type of disease is figured out. Then, the insecticide is sprayed through the help of drone.
Testing strategy for the system
The final project should be completed ending with no bugs. In order to achieve this goal,
⦁ Black box and white box testing with proper evaluation will be conducted,
⦁ Live test will be conducted in presence of audiences,
⦁ To make sure the system generates the correct information, manual disease test will be compared to the output which the system generates,
⦁ Final system will be compared to other available system to make the system perfect.




Legal Issues
Following legal acts must be considered during the project management.
⦁ Agriculture and Forestry University Act, 2067
⦁ Land Act, 2020
⦁ The Pesticides Act, 2048
⦁ Nepal Civil Aviation Authority Act, 2053


Resource required for drone
To complete the quadcopter, there are many parts required which are as follows:
⦁ Brushless motor (4pcs)
⦁ Propeller(4pc)
⦁ ESC (electronic speed controller, which controls the motor (4pcs)),
⦁ 6 channel remote control.
⦁ Receiver,
⦁ Flight control board (APM 2.0 used),
⦁ Gimbal,
⦁ Camera,
⦁ GPS,
⦁ Li-Po Battery,
⦁ Li-Po battery charger,
⦁ Spray machine.
Resources required for the system
The whole system will be made using Python programming language and OpenCV library.











References
IPATE, G., VOICU, G. and DINU, I. (2015) RESEARCH ON THE USE OF DRONES IN PRECISION AGRICULTURE. U.P.B. Sci. Bull. 77(4), pp. 263-274
Kurkute, S.R., Deore, B.D., Kasar, P., Bhamare, M. and Sahane, M. (2018) Drones for Smart Agriculture: A Technical Report. International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET). 6(IV), pp. 341-346.
Tripicchio, P., Satler, M., Dabisias, G., Ruffaldi, E. and Avizzano, C.A. (2015) Towards Smart Farming and Sustainable Agriculture with Drones. Conference paper.
Naji, I. (2019) THE DRONES’ IMPACT ON PRECISION AGRICULTURE. MSc. The University of Texas at El Paso
Nepal Law Commission (2020). [online] Available http://www.lawcommission.gov.np/en/archives/category/documents/prevailing-law/statutes-acts/agriculture-and-forestry-university-act-2067-2010 [Accessed December 4,2020].
Madhuka.com (2020)[online] Available on https://www.madhukaa.com/drones-for-agriculture/#:~:text=So%2C%20drones%20can%20be%20instrumental,technology%20in%20agriculture%20of%20Nepal.&text=Early%20identification%20of%20crops%20disease,to%20mitigate%20the%20crop%20losses.[Accessed December 4,2020].
Wikipedia (2020) Agriculture in Nepal [ONLINE]Available on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Nepal [Accessed December 4,2020].
Wikipedia (2020) Agriculture in Nepal [ONLINE]Available on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Nepal [Accessed December 4,2020].
Nepal in data (2019) STATISTICAL INFORMATION ON NEPALESE AGRICULTURE
[online] Available on https://nepalindata.com/resource/statistical-information-nepalese-agriculture-207374-201617/ [Accessed on December 4,2020]
Buzztech. 2021. Fundamental Steps In Digital Image Processing – Buzztech. [online] Available at: <https://buzztech.in/fundamental-steps-in-digital-image-processing/> [Accessed 17 January 2021].
ElProCus - Electronic Projects for Engineering Students. 2021. Arduino Sensor - Types, Working Principle And Applications. [online] Available at: <https://www.elprocus.com/arduino-sensor-types-and-applications/#:~:text=There%20are%20many%20types%20of,Soil%20Hygrometer%20Detection%20Module> [Accessed 13 January 2021].

GeeksforGeeks. 2021. Working With Images In Python - Geeksforgeeks. [online] Available at: <https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/working-images-python/> [Accessed 7 January 2021].