Basic description of the topic:
Mushrooms intended for the fresh market are currently harvested exclusively by hand. As a result, the mushroom industry is highly dependent on human labor. About half of the operating costs of mushroom farms are labor costs, which consist mainly of harvesting costs. Rising wages, stricter consideration of working hours and working conditions also increase the problems of manual labor. For these reasons, there is a great need to automate the harvest. The first step in automation is the detection of individual fungi using machine vision devices, as well as continuous measurement of environmental parameters. Detection refers to the use of a sensing device that can be used to identify mushroom heads that meet the given conditions and to facilitate the harvesting process. The student’s task is to design this system of devices and implement the monitoring system on a small sample model.
Detailed tasks:
- An introduction, a justification for the choice of topic;
- Description of the current technological steps and conditions of mushroom growing;
- A review of the literature on the automation of mushroom cultivation;
- Description of the necessary sensors selected for monitoring the cultivation parameters and the devices for the implementation of machine vision;
- Documentation of hardware and software design of an easy-to-install sensor and camera system taking into account growing conditions;
- Documentation of the design steps and demonstration of the working sample system;
- Summary;
- More development ideas.