Columbia, Missouri
August 13, 2007
Reid Smeda watches weeds grow as
part of his research. Now, thanks to a remote camera, the
agronomist can sit in his office in Waters Hall at the
University of Missouri and
check his plots 10 miles away at an Agricultural Experiment
Station. In the future, he may monitor several farms at once.
“I could monitor my plots 24/7 from my computer or from a cell
phone with Web access from anywhere in the world,” Smeda said.
 Smeda
mounted a weatherproof digital camera on a pole overlooking his
plots at the MU farm. The camera clicks a photograph as
frequently as once every 30 seconds to transmit by cell phone to
a Web-based computer server. From his desktop, Smeda can
download pictures at any time.
Informally, it is a Weed.Cam, but officially it is an SCIRC
(Self-Contained Internet Remote Camera). This is a commercially
available tracking system.
For now, Smeda is brainstorming possible research uses for the
close observation of his weed-control plots. He already plans to
use the photos for his classroom teaching. A sequence of
time-lapse pictures can show results of spraying herbicides on
weeds. He can replay the compressed videos in his MU classes
next winter.
Smeda thinks that farmers will discover other uses for remote
scouting of their fields. “If a farmer has cornfields over a
two-county area up to 40 miles away, a camera might show what is
happening that morning without driving to the field.”
At the MU Weed and Pest Control Field Day, Smeda showed the
newly installed camera to wagonloads of visiting farmers. He
asked them to think of possible uses. One farmer said it could
be used to guard his watermelon patch. Another said the remote
camera would save trips to check his center-pivot irrigation
system.
At the tour stop, Smeda asked a visitor with a Blackberry, a
hand-held information device, to search the Internet using
Smeda’s password. The visitor called up a fresh picture of the
plot in front of the tour wagon.
Everyone is familiar with cell phones with built-in cameras,
Smeda said. But he considers this a digital camera with a
built-in cell phone. A small solar panel attached to the support
pole feeds power to the Weed.Cam. Rechargeable batteries sustain
operations up to five days.
The camera can be programmed to be snap photos at various time
intervals. Smeda doesn’t plan to record a picture every five
minutes on slow growing weeds. “That would just fill up my
storage space,” he said. Now he records a view every 30 minutes.
After downloading, Smeda uses video editing software to make a
time-lapse video and studies in a few minutes what happens to
weeds over several days.
Future versions of the camera will be remotely controlled to
zoom in or pan side to side. For now, Smeda is determining just
how much information he can obtain from his remote location.
Like all new technology, this set-up is not cheap. The camera
costs $450 and the solar panel at least $150. But, Smeda
recalled as a student that his first portable calculator cost
him a week’s wages. Now more powerful calculators can be bought
for $9.99.
Smeda sees a time when he will use the Weed.Cam to monitor from
his desk the research plots at the Hundley-Whaley Farm at
Albany, Mo.; the MU Greenley Center at Novelty, Mo.; or any
other MU research farm across the state.
The cameras can work anywhere AT&T cell phone reception is
available.
The inventor of the remote camera came up with the idea to watch
a home construction project from his office. That idea was
refined by scientists at an entrepreneurial park at the
Rochester Institute of Technology.
So far, the only problem Smeda has encountered is birds doing
what birds do. To a bird, the Weed.Cam is just another statue in
the park. |
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