Progress 09/01/12 to 08/31/17
Outputs
Target Audience:This project is targeted at the undergraduate students enrolled in engineering, technology, and agriculture programs. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project provided trainings for faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students. First of all, faculty members involved in the project were able to enhance their research and teaching expertise in the area of precision agriculture. They were able to collaborate more closely and new proposals were submitted together to extend the precision agriculture research. Three graduate students were supported under this project. They worked on three research projects towards their thesis: 1) Arduino microcontroller based IoT system design; 2) Autonomous robotics system; and 3) Wireless sensor network (WSN) based ICT system design. All of them have publications on their various topics. Each year, two undergraduate students were hired by this project to conduct research projects. They help faculty members to develop the ICT and DSS system. Their works were disseminated to PVAMU research annual symposiums. Each year, one senior design group was supported by this project to work develop the ICT and DSS for precision agriculture. Their topics include: 1) Develop LabVIEW based WSN system for precision agriculture; 2) Design real-time sensing system for data collection from agriculture field; 3) Design Arduino microcontroller based autonomous data collection system with IoT. Their design and reports were highly rated at the end of the senior design presentation. All the modules developed by the above mentioned projects were introduced in undergraduate agriculture, engineering and technology classes. Class surveys and student interview showed positive results. Worth to mention, one PhD student has been continued to work on the project since he was an undergraduate. He was with the first senior design group working on this project. His master thesis was on precision agriculture, now working on his PhD still related to this project. Through the whole process, students gained hands-on experiences on technologies of various engineering disciplines, including agricultural, electrical, and computer engineering. Students increased their confidence in pursuing future career opportunities in the abovementioned areas, especially in agriculture. Also, the student feedbacks showed positive impacts on expanding students' knowledge and skills on information technology for agricultural applications. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Within the project years, the results were disseminated to communities of interest through several paths, including conference publication, seminar poster, web page, and etc. PDs attended conferences and published papers to introduce our project to a wider range of community. Below are several examples: This work has been published in a paper as oral presentation entitled "Develop a Multi-platform Information and Communication Technology System for Precision Agriculture" at 2013 International Symposium on Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, June 14-16 Beijing, China. This work has also been published in a paper as oral presentation entitled "Educational Project on Decision Support System for Precision Agriculture" at 2014 ASEE-GSW annual conference, March, New Orleans, LA. This work has been published in a paper as oral presentation entitled "Enhance Project-Based Learning Experience for Undergraduate Students with Wireless Sensor Network," at ASEE 122th Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, WA, June 14-17, 2015. A poster was presented at the 4th annual PVAMU STEAM Symposium by the student involved in this project. A paper entitled " Development of a Decision Support System for Precision Agriculture " was published in the International Journal of Engineering Research and Technology (IJERT), vol. 4, Issue 10, pp. 226-231, October 2015, ISSN: 2278-0181. A poster introducing smart watering system entitled "Smart dripping System" was presented as a student competition in the ASEE 123rd Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, LA, June 26-29, 2016. Also, the project is introduced to the public through recruit activities. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?This is the last year of the project. The future plan is to write proposals for research on building large data set cloud computing to support DSS for more agricultural applications.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
During the project years, we have conducted the following activities: 1. Improved the proposed Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Decision Support Systems (DSS) by using the fast developed microcontroller technology; 2. Integrated agricultural sensors to the ICT platform; 3. Advised undergraduate student research and senior design projects on smart irrigation; 4. Mentored graduate students on agricultural robotics and Internet of Thing (IoT) techniques; and 5. Published journal and conference papers and attended conferences to disseminate the results. Specifically, because of the fast development of the microcontroller technique, after the third years' implementation, the Arduino microcontroller has been very dominate also with IoT capability. So we revamped the research and teaching contents from LabVIEW based platform to Arduino based system. The materials are easily introduced into undergraduate classes and senior design projects. To summarize, we have the following outcomes: 1. The ICT has been improved by adding data cloud in PVAMU; 2. The system was improved for lab demonstration; 3. The IoT concept was integrated into the teaching project; and 4. The whole system has been demonstrated in undergraduate classes and senior design projects.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/15 to 08/31/16
Outputs
Target Audience:This project is targeted at the undergraduate students enrolled in engineering, technology, and agriculture programs. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?To extend the functionality of the ICT system, an undergraduate student was hired to conduct the research. One PhD student has been continued to work on the project since he was an undergraduate. His master thesis is on precision agriculture, now working on his PhD still related to this project. Another master student was supported by this project to work on data storage and retrieve from the remote data cloud. He is a computer science master student and plans to finish in May 2017. The previously developed system was demonstrated to current junior students Through the whole process, students gained hands-on experiences on technologies of various engineering disciplines, including agricultural, electrical, and computer engineering. Students increased their confidence in pursuing future career opportunities in the abovementioned areas, especially in agriculture. Also, the student feedbacks showed positive impacts on expanding students knowledge and skills on information technology for agricultural applications. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Within this project year, the results were disseminated to communities of interest through several paths, including conference publication, seminar poster, web page, and etc. PIs attended conferences and published papers to introduce our project to a wider range of community. A paper entitled "Development of a Decision Support System for Precision Agriculture " was published in the International Journal of Engineering Research and Technology (IJERT), vol. 4, Issue 10, pp. 226-231, October 2015, ISSN: 2278-0181. A poster introducing smart watering system entitled "Smart dripping System" was presented as a student competition in the ASEE 123rd Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, LA, June 26-29, 2016. Also, the project is introduced to the public through recruit activities. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?This is the last year of the project. The future plan is to write proposals for research on building large data set cloud computing to support DSS for more agricultural applications. Since the technology has been improved a lot for the past couple of years, as Internet of Thing (IoT) is very popular technique to implement the proposed system, PI will hire graduate students to work on change the platform to advanced microcontroller with IoT.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
During the fourth project year, we have conducted the following activities: 1. Improved the proposed Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Decision Support Systems (DSS) by using the fast developed microcontroller technology; 2. Integrated agricultural sensors to the ICT platform; 3. Advised student research project task about smart irrigation; and 4. Published journal paper and attended conferences to disseminate the results. Specifically, we have the following outcomes during this project year: 1. The ICT has been improved by adding data cloud in PVAMU; 2. The system was improved for lab demonstration; 3. The Internet of Thing (IoT) concept was integrated into the teaching project; and 4. The whole system has been demonstrated in lab and teaching materials are under development.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Development of a Decision Support System for Precision Agriculture, International Journal of Engineering Research and Technology (IJERT), vol. 4, Issue 10, pp. 226-231, October 2015, ISSN: 2278-0181.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Smart dripping System was presented as a student competition in the ASEE 123rd Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, LA, June 26-29, 2016.
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Progress 09/01/14 to 08/31/15
Outputs
Target Audience:This project will target at the college students from engineering, technology and agriculture areas. Changes/Problems:There are no major changes to the project. But PD would like to support a master student to continue working on the project. It won't influence the number of undergraduates hired and trained. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project supported two undergraduate researchers and one senior design group of 4 undergraduate students. Telephone interviews were conducted by external evaluator. Positive feedback can be found in external evaluator's report. Also one master student focused his research on this project. He has defended and became a PhD student and is able to work and mentor undergraduate students. The teaching materials generated through this project were introduced in undergraduate classes. Students' surveys were collected to guide future direction. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?This work has been published in a paper as oral presentation entitled "Enhance Project-Based Learning Experience for Undergraduate Students with Wireless Sensor Network," at ASEE 122th Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, WA, June 14-17, 2015. A poster was presented at the 4th annual STEAM Symposium at PVAMU by the student involved in this project. Teaching materials and system demo have been introduced to two undergraduate classes. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?PD plans to enhance the developed system to add more techniques such as microcontrollers. PD will keep on supporting senior design group, hire undergraduate students, and support a master student to do more in depth of the development work.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The accomplishments can be categorized infour areas: 1) Facility: After the intelligent equipment lab was established at Prairie View A&M University Electrical and Computer Engineering department room 223, graduate and undergraduate students were in place to conduct the research. They developed the ICT system as well as created a video to teach how the system works. Now the system can be used to demo to visitors to the lab. In the future, the video will be put on internet for more people to view. 2) Project building: Besides the National Instruments (NI) Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) based data collection and decision making system, a microcontroller based system is also developed and in the progress of finalize to be displayed in the lab. 3) Students training: a. Two undergraduate students were hired on this project; b. A senior design group (4 undergraduate students) was supervised by PDs to utilize the knowledge of ICT and DSS; c. A graduate student is trained and worked on this project, he successfully finished his master thesis and defended fall 2014 semester. After obtain his master degree, he became a PhD student and continue his student at PV. Worth to mention, the student is one of the first group senior design student to work on this project three year ago. All the students were trained with precision agriculture, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Decision Support Systems (DSS) techniques. 4) Teaching materials: Teaching materials on precision agriculture, ICT and DSS are developed and demoed in classroom. All the faculty, undergraduate students and graduate student were presented in classroom to demo how it functioned. Student surveys are collected.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/13 to 08/31/14
Outputs
Target Audience: This project will target at the college students from engineering, technology and agriculture areas. Changes/Problems: There are no major changes to the project. But PD would like to support a master student to continue working on the project. It won't influence the number of undergraduates hired and trained. Some PD's release hours can be used in the graduate students' support. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? This project supported two undergraduate researchers and one senior design group of 7 undergraduate students. Telephone interviews were conducted by external evaluator. Positive feedback can be found in external evaluator’s report. Also one master student focused his research on this project. He is able to work and mentor undergraduate students. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? This work has been published in a paper as oral presentation entitled “Educational Project on Decision Support System for Precision Agriculture” at 2014 ASEE-GSW annual conference, New Orleans, LA, March, 2014. One student presented in 2014 ERN Conference as oral presentation with title “Wireless Sensor Network in Precision Agriculture”, Washington DC, Feb. 20-22, 2014. A student presented a poster in the 5th Annual STEAM Research Symposium at Prairie View A&M University, Prairie View, TX. Teaching materials and system demo have been introduced to an undergraduate agriculture class. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? PD plans to enhance the developed system to add more WSN nodes, sensors, and indoor plants to display the system indoor for visitors, like high school students. So when they come by, there will be a live demo. PD will keep on supporting senior design group, hire undergraduate students, and support a master student to do more in depth development work.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The accomplishments can be categorized in three areas: 1) Facility: An intelligent equipment lab is established at Prairie View A&M University Electrical and Computer Engineering department room 223. 2) Project building: A data collection and decision making system was built based on National Instruments (NI) Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) and sensors: humidity, temperature, soil moisture. 3) Students training: a. Two undergraduate students were hired on this project; b. A senior design group (7 undergraduate students) was supervised by PDs to build a smart irrigation system utilize the knowledge of ICT and DSS; c. A graduate student is trained and worked on this project to be his thesis research topics. He is exploring the WSN's optimization rang with low power and high efficiency topology. Students were trained with precision agriculture, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Decision Support Systems (DSS) techniques. 4) Teaching materials: Teaching materials on precision agriculture, ICT and DSS are developed and demoed in classroom. Student surveys are collected. A basic ICT and DSS system was built based on National Instruments (NI) Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). Annual project survey was conducted by external evaluator through telephone interviews to participating students.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/12 to 08/31/13
Outputs
Target Audience: This project will target at the college students from engineering, technology and agriculture areas. Changes/Problems: There are no major changes to the project. But PD would like to support a master student who was in the senior design group and now became a graduate student at Prairie View A&M University to continue working on the project. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? This project supported two undergraduate researchers and one senior design group of 5 undergraduate students. Telephone interviews were conducted by external evaluator. Positive feedback can be found in external evaluator’s report. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? This work has been published in a paper as oral presentation entitled “Develop a Multi-platform Information and Communication Technology System for Precision Agriculture” at 2013 International Symposium on Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, June 14-16 Beijing, China. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? PD plans to enhance the developed system to add more sensors and test it out door in real field. She'll keep supporting senior design group and would like to support a master student to do more in depth sensor development work.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
An intelligent equipment lab is established at Prairie View A&M University Electrical and Computer Engineering department room 223. Two undergraduate students were hired on this project. They were trained with precision agriculture, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Decision Support Systems (DSS) techniques. A basic ICT and DSS system was built based on National Instruments (NI) Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). This system can be running in the lab. It collects humidity and temperature data in real time through humidity sensor and thermal couple. If the values get outside of the threshold, a warning message will be sent out to smart phone for user’s attention.
Publications
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