Design and Development of Sensor Based Crop Harvesting Markers and Its Integration with Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract

In fruit crops, the maturity of crop produce is manifested in the form of change in its physical, newlinephysiological and biochemical parameters. The attainment of some standard value of parameters newlinelike size and shape, color, hardness/softness, texture etc. can be treated as reference for its newlinematurity. The final stage of fruit maturity/ripening is considered to attain a maturity level of newlinethese parameters as an indicator for harvesting the fruit crop or ready to use in ripening storage newlineunits/chambers. Development of sensor-based maturity indicators can serve as important newlinetechnological aid to the farmers. The present research work envisages design and newlineimplementation of a portable sensor-based prototype for real time monitoring of fruit maturity newlinein crop field and in storage. The common harvesting parameters of major fruit crops are being newlineexplored and an IoT based early alarming system is developed. The sensing parameters in the proposed design are Colour; Softness; surrounding Temperature and Humidity. An embedded program is developed based on a decision-making algorithm which compares the process values of the sensor output with the reference value of fruit maturity, and the result is displayed and conveyed to the end user. The prototype design is tested for three types of fruits Banana newline(Musa acuminate - Kela ), Gauva (Psidiumguajava - Amrood ); Papaya (Carica - Papita ) and the results are reported in the thesis. Contd.... newline