Fábio Terra

Over the past few years, agriculture has undergone profound changes due to technological advances. The application of agrochemicals revolutionized agriculture by reducing manpower, increasing the productivity and providing a greater control of spontaneous plants. However, the application of pesticides using boom sprayers remain the same even though the advances in autonomous tractors. As crops are usually planted in rows, this paper optimizes and automates the application of pesticides through an autonomous system based on local information using computer vision. The system is implemented on smartphones and is capable of detecting rows in plantations, activating the related sprayer nozzles. Additionally, the system is easy to install in many types of tractor-mounted boom sprayers. Experimental results are obtained in an onion family farming where the system detects planting lines and controls the nozzles.

Agriculture has undergone changes in order to reduce the labor force and increase the productivity due to the technological advance. However, farmers argue that it is impossible to produce in medium or large-scale without agrochemicals. On the other hand, the need to reduce the amount of pesticides applied is evident, not just for the risk of overapplication fines, but also for potential savings. In this context, pesticide application has been revolutionized with the use of intelligent sprayers able to control even the places where the spraying is really necessary. Some manufacturers already sell solutions to meet these requirements, but the cost sometimes is so high as to make their use prohibitive in small production properties. Therefore, this work is part of a project started to develop low-cost solutions of precision agriculture, robotics, and autonomous systems accessible to smallholders and family farming. Thus, this paper presents the mathematical modeling to allow pressure and flow control along a boom sprayer with individual nozzle on-off control and serial feed. Laboratory characterizations and tests are performed on a seven nozzles boom, in various scenarios of opening and closing nozzles. Experimental results show that the pressure drop along the boom varied under extreme conditions from one to all open nozzles, affecting droplet size.

Over the past few years, agriculture has undergone profound changes due to technological advances. The application of agrochemicals revolutionized agriculture by reducing manpower, increasing the productivity and providing a greater control of spontaneous plants. However, the application of pesticides using boom sprayers remain the same even though the advances in autonomous tractors. As crops are usually planted in rows, this paper optimizes and automates the application of pesticides through an autonomous system based on local information using computer vision. The system is implemented on smartphones and is capable of detecting rows in plantations, activating the related sprayer nozzles. Additionally, the system is easy to install in many types of tractor-mounted boom sprayers. Experimental results using computer vision are obtained in an onion family farming where the system detects planting lines and controls the nozzles.

Over the past few years, agriculture has undergone profound changes due to technological advances. The application of agrochemicals revolutionized agriculture by reducing manpower, increasing the productivity and providing a greater control of spontaneous plants. However, the application of pesticides using boom sprayers remain the same even though the advances in autonomous tractors. As crops are usually planted in rows, this paper optimizes and automates the application of pesticides through an autonomous system based on local information using computer vision. The system is implemented on smartphones and is capable of detecting rows in plantations, activating the related sprayer nozzles. Additionally, the system is easy to install in many types of tractor-mounted boom sprayers. Experimental results using computer vision are obtained in an onion family farming where the system detects planting lines and controls the nozzles.

This paper presents a method to automate the validation tests of a manufacturing machine software with virtual commissioning elements. The work is applied to a welding tool that serves as a brace to keep a mechanical part immobilized during the welding operations. The proposed method consists in three parts: a simulation model of the mechanical components behavior, an environment to run the controlling system and a supervisor software that runs automatically the test scenarios and records the behavior of the controlling system. The analysis of the results will demonstrate that the controlling system is able to perform the right reaction in either nominal or defective scenarios.

Over the past few years, agriculture has undergone profound changes due to technological advances. The application of agrochemicals revolutionized agriculture by reducing manpower, increasing the productivity and providing a greater control of spontaneous plants. However, the application of pesticides using boom sprayers remain the same even though the advances in autonomous tractors. As crops are usually planted in rows, this paper optimizes and automates the application of pesticides through an autonomous system based on local information using computer vision. The system is implemented on smartphones and is capable of detecting rows in plantations, activating the related sprayer nozzles. Additionally, the system is easy to install in many types of tractor-mounted boom sprayers. Experimental results are obtained in an onion family farming where the system detects planting lines and controls the nozzles.

O crescimento populacional das últimas decadas demandou grande aumento na produção agrícola, especialmente nos gêneros alimentícios. Com isso, visando reduzir perdas e garantir produtividade, os agricultores tornam-se cada vez mais dependentes da aplicação de agrotóxicos em suas lavouras. Esse uso massivo dos defensivos agrícolas representa alto custo para o produtor, além de trazer riscos a sua saude, ao meio ambiente e à própria segurança alimentar da população. Uma forma de reduzir a quantidade de agrotóxico aplicada nas lavouras, e melhorar sua eficiência, é por meio da pulverização eletrostática, que consiste em induzir uma carga elétrica na calda (agrotoxico diluído em água) através da aplicação de alta tensão unidirecional, da ordem de dezenas de milhares de Volts. Assim, com este trabalho, propõe-se o desenvolvimento e a implementação física de uma solução modular para realizar a eletrização da calda. O equipamento é baseado em um conversor CC-CC flyback associado a uma bate...

Seguranca em empresas e instituicoes de variados tipos e cada vez mais presente no mundo moderno. Neste tema, incluem-se medidas que visam garantir seguranca e integridade tanto de pessoas quanto de bens materiais. Assim, e de grande interesse a rapida identificacao de cenarios de emergencia, especialmente quando causados por incendios. Neste artigo, apresenta-se uma solucao generica que permite a comunicacao sem fio entre centrais de incendio de diferentes fabricantes e tecnologias, de forma a viabilizar a rapida divulgacao da presenca de incendios nas empresas, complexos industriais ou instituicoes.