IDEA #5LLERN Eye-safe compact remote sensing device for precision agricultural. 19A0012

KEY WORDS: active remote sensing, lidar, eye-safe, infrared, plume tracking, measurement, leak detection. Inefficient agricultural pesticide spraying causes drift which can lead to crop damage or illegal pesticide use in neighboring non-target crop areas. It may contaminate nearby bodies of water or be an issue for human health. The proposed device would solve this by remotely monitoring the pattern and efficiency of sprayer machines, thereby avoiding the corrosive environment during spraying. Unlike other techniques currently used, this device has the potential for higher sensitivity and better ranging and target positioning than competing technologies. Inefficiency of sprayers are due to several factors; lack of continuous and proper calibration, turning certain nozzles on or off and adjusting their direction based on canopy height, correcting spray pressure based on canopy density, understanding wind conditions and direction of plume drift due to the wind. All of these factors can be greatly or completely reduced with the use of our proposed device. This would be done through monitoring drift of spray materials in real time during each application and tracking the amount of spray that reaches the canopy. Mapping out the spray drift provides information on which canopy rows the tractor must traverse to apply the chemical; if a row needs reapplication due to drift or if a row should be skipped due to drift.