Engineering solutions for biomass feedstock production - pre-harvest crop monitoring system

This work is a part of the integrated research of engineering solution for biomass feedstock production. The goal of this task is to monitor energy crops at the pre-harvest condition using near-real-time remote sensing method. To achieve this elusive goal, the stand alone tower camera platform has been developed to monitor energy crops during plant growing season. A high resolution multispectral camera with a variable lens and pan tilt device are used to capture RGB and CIR images. The system is installed on top of a 38 meter height tower in the field of energy crops. A stand-alone control algorithm has been developed to control the camera gain and exposure time in different natural illumination conditions. The sensing system is remotely controlled using wireless networking. The challenges of this task are the site-specific management; explore the potential of identify the optimum harvesting time (window) and increase the quality assurance of different biomass feedstock. The field layout has been designed to monitor crop growth conditions. The biomass yield and energy content are to be compared using remote sensing models. The correlation with agronomic databases and remote sensing spectral data will be evaluated for the validation and modification of sensing and data processing system.