Drone technology for crop surveillance to bring precision to farming

JALANDHAR, PUNJAB, INDIA, November 9, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Students of Lovely Professional University (LPU) have conceptualized and designed the ‘Flying Farmer’, a drone that can be exclusively deployed in farming and field survey. The ‘Flying Farmer’ is a wireless, sensor device that can be used in mapping and survey of yields and biomass. It estimates the nutrient content of the soil to aid production growth and reduce crop damage.

Each drone can fly for 25 minutes on a full charge and the entire apparatus costs approximately Rs. 10,000 - 15,000. 45 students and 5 faculty members from the Electronics, Mechanical, and Agricultural Engineering department have been actively involved in developing this drone technology.

The ‘Flying Farmer’ is designed to solve two major agricultural issues faced by farmers – pesticide treatment and weed detection. With rising labor costs and a shortage of labor, drone technology is hypothesized to replace human intervention in delivering pesticide treatment. Pre-programmed drones can target specific farm areas and crops to deliver pesticides, avoiding wastage and over the use of pesticides. Secondly, human weed detection is inefficient and prone to error, leading to lower produce. Drones, programmed with computer vision algorithms and infrared sensors can detect the exact position and nature of weeds and transmit information to the farmer for timely action. The field trials conducted at LPU led to an improvement of 15-20% in produce quantity.

The University will not file for a patent but instead, will open source the technology so that it can be inexpensively available to any farmer, anywhere. The University leveraged an internal research grant of Rs 1.2 crore to develop the technology.

LPU School of Agriculture is among the top Agricultural Science colleges in India. It is the first Indian Private University to be granted ICAR accreditation by the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India. The University’s farmland is spread over hundreds of acres where students from the Department of Agriculture can put their knowledge and understanding into practice.

About Lovely Professional University
Established in 2005, Lovely Professional University (LPU) is a leading university based out of Jalandhar, Punjab. LPU offers a wide variety of courses such as engineering streams, Computer Application, Hotel Management, and Tourism, Architecture and Design, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Agriculture, Fashion Design, Journalism, Films and Creative Arts, Law, Physiotherapy and Paramedical Sciences as well as Art and Languages.

LPU has gained an illustrious position in NIRF-2021 Rankings and current Times Higher Education Impact Rankings, where in the later, it is included among only 3 Indian Universities ranked in the top 200 universities of the world. Here, LPU is also ahead of all participating IITs and NITs.

Recently, eleven students from Lovely Professional University were selected as a part of the Indian Olympic contingent and 10 of these have brought laurels to India and LPU at a global pedestal by winning Gold, Silver and Bronze in Javelin, Hockey, Wrestling and Paralympic High jump events.

The vision of LPU is to be a premier academic institution, recognized internationally for its contribution to industry and society through excellence in teaching, learning, research, internationalization, entrepreneurship, sports, and leadership. LPU aims to implement a relationship of cooperation between industry and academia and to prepare graduates to be lifelong learners with strong analytical and leadership skills. To know more about LPU, please visit: https://www.lpu.in/

Aman Mittal
Lovely Professional University
aman.mittal@lpu.co.in
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