Automated Smart Repellent System
By: Anjali, Ranjit, Lakshya and Monark
May 2018
Introduction
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The SRISTI SUMMER SCHOOL every year comes up solving some of the major unmet societal needs which if we don’t wouldn’t be taken forward by anyone else. Similar was this time ,the students from all over the subcontinent gathered together to work on some of the unmet problems and looking forward to find solutions for them. The first step towards this learning experience was the 2days children creativity workshop during which we were to observe the manner a child thinks & observes. The situations as the minds of children are unbiased towards any field which allows them to think in a healthy manner about any situation. Followed by workshop were our own field visits ,then the brainstorming ,discussing the insights & building up problem statement from the field insights. Further process was proceeded by cardboard sketch prototyping to have as a proof of the concept continuing with the further research on the existing solution, the team got reviews help from experts & even gained some feedbacks. Following which the team worked further for developing the prototype.
Brainstorming
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The team before having a proper field visit did brainstorming to have discussion on the probable problems which could be faced by the people in the fields and how to ask the question on field and how & what part to focus on during the field visit. This method of getting information from observation & art of asking was being guided by miss Bissett Johnson through the lecture on Human Centred Designs. And process of mind mapping was elaborated to the teams.
Insights from Field Visit
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The team want to field visit and certain points were observed by the team:-
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Pesticides are used for protection crop by each & every farmer.
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Some spray after every fixed interval & some on arrival of insects.
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No traditional methods like trap cropping or predator feeding are done.
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No attack is observed during the day time that is because of high temperature of sun.
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In some crops insect naturally don’t come Ex.Guar
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About 7000 is being invested per vigha land only on pest & flies removal work.
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The total investment is about 25000 per viga.
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Money invested in pesticides is 26% of total investment.
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Profit is 4000-5000Rs (16-20%)after three months which lower than they invest in pesticides.
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There are some insects which do attack in more than one season.
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Other predators which they want to save from are birds , spiders , honey bee…
Re-brainstorming & building the problem statement:-
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1. From the insights of the field visit the team was for sure going to proceed to work .The goal is to introduce Agriculture practice which allows easy handling of pesticide & lower down the cost of such practices.
2. One of important points to be noted was that the people of fields do prefer other methods over old traditional ones ,The reason may be because of their ease of use or less efficiency.
3. Finally after long discussion we arrived to a conclusion that most of the part of the total expenditure is being invested on insect & flies removal and are not that effective so to bring a low cost solution to this problem would be the best way out.
4. One of the effective way will by electronic repelling method.
Beginning from the prototype design:
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The comments from the experts on the building the problem statement & the prototype sketch were quiet satisfactory & the suggestions for increasing the range & setting a larger limit to the frequency interval were focused on for the final prototype version.
Device & Working Concept Description:-
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Looking at the economic impact of conventional pesticides to non-target species and the benefit that of electronic pest control devices (Smart Repellent), the path of safety can be drawn by weighing all the risks against the benefits on both side. The safety associated with electronic pest control device i.e., Smart Repellent cannot be overemphasized. The project is related to farmers problem as they faced the problem because of pests. The project is going to replace the use of harmful pesticides. Smart repellent refers to the various means of repelling pests using electrically powered devices. There are basically two types of Pest repellent i.e., Ultrasonic device and the Electromagnetic types. Ultrasonic devices are operated by transmitting high frequency sound wave greater than 20,000HZ. The smart Repellent generate variable ultrasonic sound as some of the animals such as dog, bats, rodents, birds and insects are hearable to ultrasonic range. The human lacks to ultrasound. Smart Repellent designed and constructed to emit sound of this variable frequency, when targeted at pests; they make them uncomfortable within the area of coverage thereby repelling them away from the area without affecting the environment and non-target organisms, including man. The smart repellent generate the various sonic waves transducer to repel insects in the range of 20 KHZ – 45 KHZ. As the smart repellent is solar powered we used a light sensor as the insects attacks at the time of early morning and in the evening a this time the insects attacks is more so the light intensity sensor will sense the intensity of sun and as the intensity decreases the smart repellent get activated and it start to repel the insects. The mechanism of this device is that the insects attacks in the group they are in group of 10-20 and than they attacks but the most important thing is that in one day they reproduce up to 80-90 so that the male reproduce the latches of eggs and which is harmful to crops thus the smart repellent is going to repel that male insects and from that the female also get reduced by this the insects get repelled. This is the mechanism of the smart repellent. The advantage of this method over other pest control methods includes the fact that they are cheap, eco-system friendly, environmentally friendly and have no risks to humans.
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Early prototyping
Within no time the team was up for rapid prototyping & a working prototype of the device was made ready to work to test the concept which was successful in making sounds with variable frequencies.
Final Working Prototype
Finally the team got ready the final prototype which can cause variable frequencies varying 0-42 kHz of sounds at certain part of the day during the early morning & evening when there are high probabilities of pests to be attacking.
Way Forward
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Thus the team from discussions with the users came up with more goals for the future version of the device those are:-
1. Cover more frequency range & make the device multiple frequency working.
2. Include larger intervals for more insects to get repelled by the frequency of device
3. Introduction of a new concept of control using knob system which would make the device more user friendly.
4. Make it efficient & add more value to it like detection of soil moisture for instant automatic irrigation systems.