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US 11,895,953 B2Granted
Plant health monitoring apparatus and methods
OwnerEdwin Michael Gyde Heaven, Donny Cayananinventors
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods and apparatus for determining a plant health parameter based on a measured IR parameter of the plant are provided. If the measured plant health parameter indicates the plant is experiencing a stress condition, an alert can be provided and/or a control system can be activated to supply environmental elements such as water to the plant to ameliorate the stress condition.
Claims20
A method of determining a health parameter of a plant comprising:
- using a measuring device, measuring an infrared (IR) parameter of the plant to provide a measured IR parameter at a measuring wavelength at which the IR parameter is sensitive to variations in the health parameter;
- using a measuring device, measuring a reference parameter of the plant at a reference wavelength at which the measured IR parameter exhibits no or limited variation with variations in the health parameter;
- using a processor, comparing the measured IR parameter with the reference parameter to determine a relation between the measured IR parameter and the reference parameter;
- and
- using a processor, quantifying the health parameter of the plant based on the relation between the measured IR parameter and the reference parameter.
2 more elements
A method of measuring a plant health parameter comprising one or more of:
- a level of moisture in a plant canopy, a biomass of a plant canopy, a cellulose content of a plant canopy and a level of stress of plants comprising a plant canopy, the method comprising:
- using a measuring device, measuring a measured infrared (IR) parameter value at a measuring wavelength at which the measured IR parameter value is sensitive to variations in the plant health parameter for a measuring path extending through the plant canopy;
- using a processor, comparing the measured IR parameter value with the reference IR parameter value to determine a relation between the measured IR parameter value and the reference IR parameter value;
- and
- using a processor, determining one or more of:
- the level of moisture in the plant canopy, the biomass of the plant canopy, the cellulose content of the plant canopy, and the level of stress of the plants comprising the plant canopy based on the relation between the measured IR parameter value and the reference IR parameter value.
3 more elements
An apparatus for measuring a health parameter, the apparatus comprising:
- a measuring IR source for emitting radiation at a measuring wavelength;
- a measuring IR detector for measuring a measured infrared (IR) parameter at the measuring wavelength at which the measured IR parameter is sensitive to variations in the health parameter;
- a reference IR source for emitting radiation at a reference wavelength at which the measured IR parameter exhibits no or limited variation with variations in the health parameter;
- a reference IR detector for measuring a reference parameter at the reference wavelength;
- and
- a controller programmed to compare the measured IR parameter to the reference parameter and quantify the health parameter of the plant based on a relation between the measured IR parameter and the reference parameter.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.