Browsing by Author "Mkiramweni, ME"

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    Plant water stress monitoring and control system
    Simbeye, DS; Mkiramweni, ME; Karaman, B; Taskin, S
    Precision irrigation is an important component of the water-saving approaches in agriculture and is one of the methods for increasing water-saving efficiency. Detecting water stress in crops accurately is the basis of precision irrigation techniques. In this study, the crop water stress monitoring system was developed to detect the acoustic emission (AE) of plants, associating the three factors of soil, crops, and weather in real-time. The automatic mon-itoring system, which was developed using the virtual instrument platform, not only affects the water stress and the drought of the atmosphere but can also be used to control the greenhouse environment automatically. The substance subjected to testing was a potted tomato plant (Lycopersicon esculentum). Environmental parameters are monitored in this system using a virtual instrument data acquisition system based on Peripheral Component Inter-connect -Data acquisition (PCI-DAQ). The AE sensor was used to fix tomato stems at 1/3 and 2/3 of their overall height in order to detect AE information, which serves as an indirect indicator of the plant's water condition. This system, which could test and record water requirement information for the crops, has been demonstrated to be stable, nondestructive, and easily manipulable. The results showed that the cohesion between water molecules was weak under water stress conditions. The water flow fracture of the conduits resulted in cavitation by rapidly expanding gas bubbles. The cavitation event caused a rapid relaxation of the liquid tension that produced an AE of energy. It was found that crop hydraulic structure and anti-drought indicators were correlated with AE, which resulted from crop adaptation to the environment. The counts of AE change regularly, according to the variation of the environment's temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide consistency, and transpiration. Based on the relationship between AE and crop water stress conditions, the mathematical model of precision irrigation was obtained. As producing AE is a complex biological process, the future work is to build the different crops' information models in different growth periods. The data acquisition based on the AE information should be researched further.
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    Design and development of smart cover system for vineyards
    Karaman, B; Taskin, S; Simbeye, DS; Mkiramweni, ME; Kurtoglu, A
    With the abrupt change of climatic conditions every year, the effect on nature increases visibly. Grape producers experience the effects of climate change negatively. For example, frost, hail, and extreme temperatures are undesirable conditions for grape producers. When any of these natural events occur, they can greatly damage grape crops. In this study, a cover system that can be opened and closed automatically has been developed against undesirable natural events that vineyards are exposed to. The developed system consists of a DC gear motor capable to open and close the vineyard cover, a control card that collects the information from the sensors (rain sensor, temperature sensor, hail sensor, and frost sensor) and interprets the results, a solar battery that will store energy, a PV panel that will charge the battery, and mechanical components. In this work, an easily portable prototype was studied. The dimensions of the design have been realized as 1/3 of the dimensions of the real system. The system is designed to be 1 m high and 2 m wide. The control card of the system is designed to be suitable for outdoor conditions. Moreover, a remote management and condition monitoring of the system have been realized via a mobile application. Thus, it was aimed to increase the productivity of the vineyards and to protect the grapes.