Last year we completed a project with the Melbourne Networked Society Institute called the Digital Vineyard. Read the full article here.
Wine is one of Australia's chief exports. Australia is the world's fifth largest exporter of wine and the seventh largest producer of wine in the world. The wine industry is a significant contributor to the Australian economy. Growing conditions are, however, predicted to change with higher average temperatures, water scarcity and more pressure on land use from a growing population. The result is that wine makers will need to manage resources much more efficiently without comprising wine quality.
This project takes a significant step towards this vision by developing the algorithms and software to acquire, combine, analyse and disseminate data from in-ground sensors and the multi-spectral images taken from drones. In-ground sensors provide a wealth of data about the condition of the soil such as the soil temperature, soil moisture content, salinity, pH levels and some other factors, while drones map valuable metrics for growth, early symptoms of undesirable plant health conditions, and indicators for fruit quality.
The project is developing key elements of sensor network and camera calibration, research and methods for combining the data from the different types of sensors and developing data analysis methods that will provide actionable metrics for growers. Development will focus on designing a standardised optical sensor calibration procedure, automated optical image geo-referencing and ortho-mosaic generation, dissemination and visualisation to end users.
Photo: Teagan Glenane