Low-cost aerial imaging for small holder farmers

Adityajain, Zerina Kapetanovic, Akshit Kumar, Vasuki Narasimha Swamy, Rohit Patii, Deepak Vasisht, Rahul Sharma, Manohar Swaminathan, Ranveer Chandra, Anirudh Badam, Gireeja Ranade, Sudipta Sinha, S. N. Akshay Uttama Nambi

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Recent work in networked systems has shown that using aerial imagery for farm monitoring can enable precision agriculture by lowering the cost and reducing the overhead of large scale sensor deployment. However, acquiring aerial imagery requires a drone, which has high capital and operational costs, often beyond the reach of farmers in the developing world. In this paper, we present TYE (Tethered eYE), an inexpensive platform for aerial imagery. It consists of a tethered helium balloon with a custom mount that can hold a smartphone (or a camera) with a battery pack. The balloon can be carried using a tether by a person or a vehicle. We incorporate various techniques to increase the operational time of the system, and to provide actionable insights even with unstable imagery. We develop path-planning algorithms and use that to develop an interactive mobile phone application that provides the user instant feedback to guide users to efficiently traverse large areas of land. We use computer vision algorithms to stitch orthomosaics by effectively countering wind-induced motion of the camera. We have used TYE for aerial imaging of agricultural land for over a year, and envision it as a low-cost aerial imaging platform for similar applications.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationCOMPASS 2019 - Proceedings of the 2019 Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages41-51
Number of pages11
ISBN (Electronic)9781450367141
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 3 2019
Externally publishedYes
Event2019 ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies, COMPASS 2019 - Accra, Ghana
Duration: Jul 3 2019Jul 5 2019

Publication series

NameCOMPASS 2019 - Proceedings of the 2019 Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies

Conference

Conference2019 ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies, COMPASS 2019
Country/TerritoryGhana
CityAccra
Period7/3/197/5/19

Keywords

  • Aerial Imagery
  • Innovative Mobile Sensing
  • Mobile Systems for Sustainability

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Computer Science

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