Automatic and Non-Invasive Monitoring of Vineyards Water Stress

¹ Politecnico di Torino, Mechatronic Engineering
² Politecnico di Milano, Telecommunication Engineering
³ Politecnico di Milano, Design and Engineering
⁴ Politecnico di Milano, Mathematical Engineering
⁵ Politecnico di Milano, Material Engineering and Nanotechnology
⁶ Politecnico di Milano, Building Achitecture
⁷ Politecnico di Milano, Building Engineering
⁸ Politecnico di Milano, Dept. of Architecture, Building and Built Environment Engineering
⁹ Politecnico di Milano, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
¹⁰ Politecnico di Torino, Dept. of Structural, Building and Geotechnical Engineering

Academic Editor: Lampros Vasiliades

Published: 14 March 2023 by MDPI in The 7th International Electronic Conference on Water Sciences session Urban and Agricultural Water Systems

https://doi.org/10.3390/ECWS-7-14164

Abstract:

We propose an automatic and non-invasive system for monitoring the health of vine plants by measuring their water stress, with the goal of mitigating the increasingly frequent extreme meteorological events such as droughts. The envisioned system measures the spatial distribution of the Crop Water Stress Index (CWSI) on the crop field, to provide the farmers with a precise control on their vine’s health and, therefore, on the final quality of their product. To ensure the robust acquisition of parameters needed to compute the CWSI, data are collected by field sensors on the ground, by drones, and by exploiting satellite data. Data fusion then allows to obtain an associated georeferenced heatmap of the vineyard. The solution has been tested via a prototype, which allowed the collection of information in a vineyard.

Keywords: vineyard; vine health; crop; monitoring; water management; CWSI; vegetation index; drones; sensors; satellite

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