Drone Aided Thermal Mapping for Selective Irrigation of Localized Dry Spots

Abstract

We report a smart irrigation system that allows selective irrigation of localized dry spots in an agricultural field. The proposed irrigation system uses a quadcopter drone equipped with a Thermal Infrared (TIR) camera and a GPS module to generate georeferenced thermal images that indicate the area and location of the dry spots in a survey area. Drones navigate and acquire aerial thermal images, which are then processed by an onboard edge intelligence module along with flight data (GPS coordinates, altitude, and drone direction). Smart sprinklers deployed on the field are able to wirelessly receive the coordinates of dry spots so they can be irrigated selectively. A terrestrial edge unit generates an irrigation pattern for the smart sprinklers using a pre-trained machine learning (ML) model to generate an irrigation pattern by varying the head rotation angle ( theta ) and the water flow control valve rotation angle( emptyset ) of the smart sprinkler.