Pesto-Mode 2k19
Table Number: 33
Group Members: Joel Nielsen, Callen Shutts, Jack Troshinsky, Alex Zhu, Dominic Voto
What is it? Pesto-Mode is a web application that advises a farmer when the ideal time to spray their pesticides is. This is accomplished by placing IoT based sensors into the field that communicate live weather data. It also pulls online weather data to help make it's decisions.
How does it make its decisions? Pesto-Mode takes in a wide variety of factors when calculating the "score" for spraying pesticides on a certain day.
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Wind speed: during the day, the ideal wind speed is between 5 and 15 km/h. If it's too windy the pesticides will spread too much resulting in less effective application and more environmental damage. If the wind speed is too small, the pesticides will not get distributed enough.
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Wind direction: our web interface allows users to mark bodies of water that are nearby their farm. The model will then give a lower score if the wind is blowing in a similar direction as the water. This is to help prevent leaking of pesticides into the local ecosystem.
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Temperature: based on our research, in most cases lower temperatures are ideal for pesticide application. As temperature rises, droplets evaporate faster and air becomes more turbulent resulting in less effective application. Therefore, our model prefers lower temperatures, with a temperature of roughly 60 degrees Fahrenheit being ideal.
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Delta-T Value: the delta-t value represents the rate of evaporation of liquid. While we cannot directly measure this, it can be calculated using temperature, humidity, and pressure. A delta-t value between 2 and 12 is preferred with numbers near 2 being ideal.
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Pressure differences throughout the field: a similar pressure across the farmer's entire field indicate ideal conditions for spraying. This is because pressure gradients throughout the field will results in unstable surface conditions and volatility of particle movement. Therefore, if a field has multiple sensors in it (which we envision most will), we check that the pressures at the various sensors are similar.
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Rain: rain occurring soon after pesticide application is not ideal for many reasons. Firstly, this decreases the effectiveness of the application as many of the pesticides will be washed away. Secondly, as a consequence of this wash-away, the local ecosystem will be flooded with pesticides that are harmful to plants and animals. Therefore, our model looks to avoid rain in the days following pesticide application.
How to run? Pesto-mode can be run through main.py.