2015-2016 Senior Capstone

Gonzaga Center for Engineering Design & Entrepreneurship

Contact

PACCAR 214
(509) 313-3913

CPSC01 Ag Sprinkler App

Team Members: Daniel Bladow, Brandon Castair, 

Adam Smith, Landon Kissinger

  

Faculty Advisor: Shawn Bowers 


Sponsor: Gonzaga University Center for 

Engineering Design & Entrepreneurship  


Liaison: Melissa Migliuri


Project Overview: Currently the largest cost for any organization is labor. This has created market demand for automated systems in agriculture. Additionally, the agricultural market lacks efficiency, which can be improved. Some automated farming systems currently exist, but we want to develop a more efficient and user friendly automated system. We plan on using sensor technology to help determine the best water practices and track the underground flow of nitrates/pesticides. There is another senior design team that will be working on the development of the sensor and communication of information between sensors. Our goal is to develop the user friendly interface as well as basic automated irrigation features.
 

Project Goal: 

The project group will determine efficiency of current systems, design improvements, and create an automated system. First and foremost, a database must be created to store all sensor information from a farm. Secondly, a user interface must be created that 1) will display the sensor information and 2) allows the user to remotely control the irrigation of their farm. A phone app would best allow a person to simply view the current active irrigation data for their farm. A more in depth computer based program may help in viewing all data histories and data visualizations over extended periods of time. The purpose of the phone app would be to provide the user control over the farm. The purpose of a computer based program would be to view all data history, data visualizations, and regression analysis for nitrate flows in the farm. Overall, the phone app is meant to be simple but effective while the computer program is supposed to be more in depth. 

Project Deliverables:

1.     Android & IOS user interface to display current soil moisture and nitrate levels
a.      Interface allows user to shut off valves and portions of irrigation remotely
b.     Sets reminders for user to shut off valves
c.      Allows for user set time intervals for on/off on irrigation valves

2.      User interface for a computer to display and manage all data and data history
a.      Perform regression analysis for nitrate across farms to determine flow of nitrates under ground

                    3.     Automatic built in failsafe to shut off a valve if a section of irrigation is broken  or leaking

a.      Automatically determine when a pipe is broken (probably through differences in pressure)

                    4.     Database management to store all sensor information

                    a. Currently, this project is for one farm so the database would handle sensor data for just one farm.


Project Management and communication expectations:

1.     Dynamically updated schedules

a.      Weekly team meetings

b.     Bi-weekly check-in meetings with EE/ME team

2.     Monthly meetings with liaison engineer.

3.     Status reports weekly.

Research Expectations:

1.     Android & IOS programming

2.     Database management programming

Forms & methods of regression analysis for determine flow of nitrates underground
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