Project Overview:
Sowin' Seeds is developing a pollination drone. This project is inspired by the premise that global pollinator populations are decreasing at an alarming rate, and this could wreak havoc on the agricultural industry and the global food supply. This pollination drone aims to cross pollinate crops with minimal human input. For the scope of this course, our drone will target apple blossoms, but could be extended beyond one species in the future. Not only could our product be used in fields and orchards- it could also be used in, for example, greenhouses, urban gardens, and other applications where pollinators are not easily available. The drone will be equipped with a Jetson Nano to perform most of the image processing tasks, and STM32H7 to make important flight decisions and process positional data, among other control operations, and a PixHawk flight controller for the drone.
Project Specific Success Criteria:
- PSSC #1: An ability to detect the location of a flower in an image(s) frame.
- PSSC #2: An ability to communicate flower positional data between the STM32 and the Jetson Nano.
- PSSC #3: An ability to actuate and detect contact with a capacitive switch on the pollen collecting appendage.
- PSSC #4: An ability to monitor battery life with the STM32 during drone flight.
- PSSC #5: An ability to communicate with the flight controller over the mavlink protocol.