Showing papers by "Norman S. Kopeika published in 2018"

Applicability of digital color imaging for monitoring nitrogen uptake and fertilizer requirements in crops

Abstract: The advancements in remote sensing in combination with sensor technology, both passive and active, enable growers to analyze an entire crop field, its local features and crop conditions. Nutrient deficiency, and in particular nitrogen deficiency, may cause substantial crop losses. This deficiency needs to be identified immediately. A faster the detection and correction, a lesser the damage to the crop yield. In the present work, an applicability of digital color imaging to monitor nitrogen uptake in crops is demonstrated. The measurements were performed in a carrot and wheat fields as well as in a greenhouse. The images of canopy were taken during the entire growing season by use a hand held digital color (RGB) camera together with plants collection for lab analysis. The nitrogen weight in plant leaves, kg/ha, was obtained by image processing and compared with the standard laboratory analysis. Applicability of digital color imaging to monitor N uptake in crops instead of laboratory test is successfully demonstrated. The availability of RGB image-based data for N uptake is faster, timely and less expensive than that of laboratory test and can be obtained by low-cost ground-based imaging devices, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and satellites.

Inexpensive and simple MMW imaging using optical detection of light emitted from glow discharge detectors

Abstract: Millimeter waves imaging systems have many applications in medicine, communications, homeland security, and space technology. The advantages of MMW includes high penetrates thru almost every dielectric materials and no known ionization hazard for biological tissue, and low atmospheric scattering compared to infrared and optical rays. The Glow Discharge Detector (GDD) is a low cost room temperature MMW detector based on a commercial neon indicator lamp. Previously the GDD was proven to be very sensitive and inexpensive MMW radiation detector capable of direct and heterodyne radiation detection. Focal Plane Arrays (FPA) of GDD pixels were constructed and experimentally tested. In those experiments, the change in the DC bias current of the GDD was measured as function of the incidence MMW radiation. In this work the up-conversion of MMW radiation to visual light is demonstrated. By using a CCD/CMOS camera and GDD FPA a faster, more sensitive, and very inexpensive MMW and THz imaging system can be implemented. Also it is shown that by using the up converting method a real time 2D and 3D images can be obtained. 3D imaging system can provide the topography of the object plane in addition to intensity reflected from the image. Preliminary experimental results of an imaging system based on a unique quasi optical system, an 8×8 GDD's focal plane array (FPA), and a CCD camera is demonstrated. Also it is shown that the MMW images can be obtained in Real time.