<\/p>\n
Dr. Ciprian Popoviciu,\u00a0assistant professor in East Carolina University\u2019s Department of Technology Systems, points to a screen showing data sensor locations across eastern North Carolina in his lab in ECU\u2019s Science and Technology Building.<\/p>\n
COURTESY ECU NEWS SERVICE<\/p>\n
East Carolina University researchers are using artificial intelligence to transform data collected in Hyde County canals and fields to provide real-time, usable information for managing water levels, salinity intrusion and other environmental conditions.<\/p>\n
Researchers with the Center for IoT (Internet of Things) Engineering and Innovation started on a project to help farmers better understand what\u2019s happening on their farms, said Ciprian Popoviciu, associate professor in the department of technology systems and the director of the Center for IoT Engineering and Innovation.<\/p>\n
The center developed Piton, Platform for IoT Open Networks, which deploys low-cost sensors to collect data for analysis.<\/p>\n
When the project started, Popoviciu and his team performed the analysis themselves, but that created a delay in sharing the information with farmers.<\/p>\n
Camden County native Colby Sawyer, the grandson of a recently retired farmer, was pursuing a graduate degree and writing a thesis about applying artificial intelligence to data analysis. As he worked with Popviciu and other researchers in processing the data he saw how his thesis\u2019 findings could be applied in a real-world situation.<\/p>\n
Sawyer started working with a large language model, a popular AI program that is used for ChatGPT and Google\u2019s Gemini. LLMs know how to read and write.<\/p>\n
Building on the foundation of language, Sawyer taught it how to analyze the data it was receiving from the sensors. He also taught it how to work with data from projects other ECU researchers were pursuing.<\/p>\n
More importantly, he taught it how to produce the information a farmer would need.<\/p>\n
Popoviciu and Sawyer began working with a Hyde County farmer who manages water levels in canals running through the fields.<\/p>\n
Traditionally, the farmer had to manually check the levels with a measuring stick once, sometimes twice, a day, Sawyer said. If the level was too high, he turned on a pump to drain the water.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the pump is actually doing is preventing portions of the county from flooding,\u201d Popoviciu said. \u201cIt\u2019s a super important job, but this is not what he\u2019s paid to do. His business is to be a farmer. That\u2019s where he makes his money. That\u2019s his bread and butter. This is like a community service project. So we wanted to make it easier for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sawyer and Popviciu installed sensors, costing $150 each, in the canals. The sensors relayed the data collected to the AI agent who processes it and shares it with the farmer via an app.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow he can get a text alert that says, \u2018Hey, by the way, your water level is getting pretty high. You may want to consider something,\u2019\u201d Sawyer said. \u201cHe can text back and say, \u2018What is the water level? What does it look like? Do you think it\u2019s going to be a problem today or is it a problem for tomorrow?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The AI agent, usually data it gleaned from the farmer\u2019s previous responses, makes a recommendation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to say, \u2018Actually, you\u2019re OK. It\u2019s less than 2 feet and you\u2019ve considered that pretty normal. You don\u2019t have to do anything today,\u2019 or expecting some rain tomorrow. \u2018Maybe you should consider it tomorrow,\u2019\u201d Sawyer said.<\/p>\n
This exchange has saved the farmer a 20-minute trip to measure the water levels, he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dr.\u00a0Ciprian Popoviciu and Colby Sawyer, instructor in the Department of Technology Systems, talk with ECU students about a smart agriculture project inside a greenhouse in Wilson.<\/p>\n
COURTESY ECU NEWS SERVICE<\/p>\n
Recently, the farmer took a quick vacation to Ocracoke and was able to check the sensors, which meant he didn\u2019t have to worry about finding someone to do the work or risk coming home to flooding.<\/p>\n
Popoviciu also has a connection to agriculture, a cousin in Romania who farms.<\/p>\n
Despite their connections, Popoviciu said he and Sawyer recognize they are technologists, not farmers. Farmers drive development for Popoviciu and Sawyer.<\/p>\n
During a recent trip to Hyde County, their farm partner talked about saltwater intrusion ruining parts of fields. The farmer they\u2019ve been working with asked how he could monitor the intrusion and determine its effect on crops.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can check the salinity of the water, the ditches, and we\u2019re checking the salinity in the soil. So we can see if maybe that water is leaching into the soil, what effect that\u2019s having, what temperature does to that, what weather does to that, and we can deliver that to the farmer as another portion of that AI,\u201d Sawyer said.<\/p>\n
Another project involved setting up sensors in grain bins to measure the amount of grain in storage. The goal is to eliminate the need for a person to climb to the top of a bin with a measuring device.<\/p>\n
The sensors make it easier to collect and store months of data, which allows farmers to better plan how much grain they have to produce or buy.<\/p>\n
Earlier this spring they were working with a farmer to develop a process for measuring temperatures in the bin to prevent spontaneous combustion.<\/p>\n
Popoviciu and Sawyer are talking with six other Hyde County farmers about projects they would like to pursue.<\/p>\n
They are working with RIoT, Regional Internet of Things, an incubator focused on rural entrepreneurship by integrating technology and AI into different farming and other businesses.<\/p>\n
RIoT is currently operating a facility in Wilson that allows farmers to experiment with crops not traditionally grown in the area but are suitable for the climate.<\/p>\n
Popoviciu and Sawyer are providing the group with sensors and other instrumentation to monitor temperatures, humidity and irrigation in traditional greenhouses and hoop houses. Keeping track of that information shows growers if different plants can be grown locally. It also alerts staff to unexpected changes that could signal a problem.<\/p>\n
When snow and an extended period of below-freezing temperatures struck the area earlier this year, the propane tanks that warmed the greenhouse unexpectedly ran out of fuel overnight, Popviciu said. The growers didn\u2019t find out until the morning.<\/p>\n
AI is being taught to alert the growers that temperatures and gas levels are dropping. The eventual goal is to have AI make the corrections when possible.<\/p>\n
Popoviciu and Sawyer also hope their technology solves another problem facing farmers: bringing their children into the business.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dr.\u00a0Ciprian Popoviciu talks with students about a smart agriculture project inside a greenhouse in Wilson.<\/p>\n
COURTESY ECU NEWS SERVICE<\/p>\n
The Hyde County farmer they are working with has a son who is studying technology at NC State University and is unsure if he wants to farm, Popoviciu said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe now that we have this IoT, we have these AI capabilities on the farm, and we\u2019re doing smart agriculture, we can entice those students, entice those kids to come back and serve the family,\u201d Popoviciu said. \u201cBe the next generation, be the generation that uses technology with farming. They\u2019re not mutually exclusive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The farmer told them his son is showing interest in the family farm as he learns about his father\u2019s work with Popviciu and Sawyer.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe can see it on his phone, he can interface with AI. He can see how the technology layer makes these things better, and it\u2019s not that technology and farming are completely separate, like we kind of all had thought before,\u201d Sawyer said. \u201cWe\u2019re bridging that gap, bringing technology to the farms, hopefully inspiring the next generation of farmers to stick around.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Popoviciu and Sawyer had some grant funding when they launched the project, and still run their lab in the Science and Technology Building, they\u2019ve spent a lot of their own time working on the project. They are unsure of its future.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are multiple paths for our project. We have county officials who are interested in the technology. It is possible it becomes a community service, something that the county funds. It could be that the state is going to help run this type of facility,\u201d Popoviciu said.<\/p>\n
They have talked to the university about transitioning it into an entity outside the university.<\/p>\n
Popoviciu said the system they are developing isn\u2019t a short-term proposal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are developing it to be useful as a service,\u201d he said. \u201cBut from an economics perspective, we don\u2019t know yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sawyer said that because of the project\u2019s financial constraints, the system they\u2019ve created is relatively inexpensive.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been working kind of from the grassroots up and so we\u2019ve been keeping that in mind since day one and so far it\u2019s worked out for us, right,\u201d Sawyer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are other projects that are built for communities in wealthy areas of North Carolina,\u201d Popviciu said. \u201cThey got millions in grants. I don\u2019t think they achieved as much as we did. But they have millions in grants. Our mission was we want this for the folks who don\u2019t even know that this is possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we want to do is we want to make it easy for all these small, medium farms to take advantage of this technological revenue,\u201d Popoviciu said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr. Ciprian Popoviciu,\u00a0assistant professor in East Carolina University\u2019s Department of Technology Systems, points to a screen showing data…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7189,7191,714,24,7193,7192,25,1278,7194,6073,7196,6074,7190,7197,7195,134,7188],"class_list":{"0":"post-8230","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ai","8":"tag-adp-company","9":"tag-aerial-photography","10":"tag-agriculture","11":"tag-ai","12":"tag-aircraft","13":"tag-airplane","14":"tag-artificial-intelligence","15":"tag-aviation","16":"tag-digital-photography","17":"tag-greenhouse","18":"tag-instrumentation","19":"tag-internet-of-things","20":"tag-photography","21":"tag-polytunnel","22":"tag-soil","23":"tag-technology","24":"tag-unmanned-aerial-vehicle"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}