Droplet Detection and Quantification using Hydrosensitive Cards

JUAN IGNACIO PASTORE; MARCEL BRUN; PEDRO PLATZ ; INTI PAGNUCO; VIRGINIA L. BALLARIN

Córdoba

Congreso; XXI Congreso Argentino de Bioingeniería y X Jornadas de Ingeniería Clínica - SABI 2017; 2017

Sociedad Argentina de Bioingeniería y la Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales y la Facultad de Ciencias Médicas de la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba

Agrochemicals and herbicides use has grown from the 1980s onwards in a manner proportional to the development of agriculture. Their use in food production represents an undeniable benefit, providing greater and more stable production. However, the application of these products in an improper way may reduce its efficiency and carry possible toxic risks to health and the environment. A key aspect for a proper control of its application is a correct analysis the distribution of chemicals applied. Hydrosensitive cards (HC) proved to be agood tool for the analysis of the quality of application of agrochemicals in a field. The efficiency of these cards depends strongly on a precise readout of the shape, quantity and distribution of the droplets that hit the card. Some software solutions are available for this task, but most of them are not available for field work, and the few ones available are not freely customizable. In this work we developed an algorithm for the lecture and analysis of hydrosensitive cards, which detects automatically the drops, determines the quality of the card, and measure several statistical quantitative parameters, useful for the control of agrochemical application.