This past weekend some of the members of the UAS team had the opportunity to meet with parents and future students to present to them the UAS project. They explained how the project works, but most importantly the importance of the overall project on how it will help our local community of Merced.
Many families who went up to speak the UAS team asked about how exactly do they get a normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image and how is it used? Project Manager Nathan Ibarra explained to them that through the use of code they can process an image by running all the pixels in an image taken from the drone's camera module. By tweaking this image to certain values they can process an image where only light reflecting can be seen and thus outputting an NDVI image. He also explains that the image output is meant to help local farmers be able to analyze and detect the Pierce Disease, a bacterium, Xylella fastidiosa, spread by sharpshooters that feed on infected vegetation and then inject the bacterium into the sap of nearby grapevines. Overall, the Pierce Disease blocks the water flow within plants causing them to completely dry out and eventually killing the crop due to dehydration and through the use of an NDVI image, this can be seen.
Others asked about the extensive use of the project, could it be used to detect other viruses than just the Pierce Disease and if it could be used against other types of crops besides grape vineyards? Platform team member Annaliza Torres explained that through the tweaking of the code it is possible to be used against other crops. However, it would be necessary to test and gather data to analyze to be able to find suitable values within a range to detect different diseases in other types of crops. Lastly, Imaging team member Christopher De La Cruz explained that other viruses can be detected depending on the symptoms a virus produces or causes. He explains it is important to note that the Pierce Disease stops water from flowing within plants thus, drying them out and therefore, if other diseases don't have this similar symptom it could be impossible to detect through the use of water and light reflection.
This marks a good day for the UAS team as they had the opportunity to explain the importance of their project and hope to be able to introduce others about the UAS project and how it will help the local farmers of Merced.
