Instrumentation and control to improve the crop yield

Abstract

Nowadays, there exist several threats around the world that cause catastrophic damages in the planet. One of the most important menaces is the lack of food that affects the health of people around the world. Animals and plants need food to survive, the survival insurance of both will help to ensure the food production and by consequence the aliment for each person around the world, which is a priority issue in all countries. At the present time, the food production has been affected more drastically by several biotic and abiotic factors that day by day diminish the quantity and quality of the worldwide food; this menaces the food security, principally in less developed countries. According to FAO on 2013, there exist 868 millions of persons suffering malnutrition around the world and the most of them millions are found in Asian and African countries; nonetheless, the highest percentage is concentrated in Africa (FAO 2013), where exists countries that has 65 % with nutrition problems. In order to battle this factors that decrease the quality and quantity of aliment around the world, the agriculture has incorporated technology that goes from employing simple sensors such as temperature sensors to sophisticated instruments such as phytomonitor. The use of technology in agriculture is commonly called precision agriculture and its goal is, by monitoring variables affecting the final production and quality of the plants, to increase the quantity and quality of the food production and by consequence decrease the affection provoked by the abiotic and biotic factors. The process going from sowing to having a product ready to be sold, has several stages that must be carefully monitored to ensure a product of high quality ready to be consumed; to reach this, the plant need to be monitored during the sow-to-ripening and postharvesting processes; to do this, several kinds of technology and techniques has been used, one of them is the image processing by employing vision systems.