Weekly Status Reports 2/21
Group:
This week, we finalized the hardware architecture and component selections in preparation for ordering. We advanced the design report by researching and justifying our chosen indices and design requirements using relevant literature, expanding beyond an NDVI-only approach. We also completed and presented our design presentation, reviewed peer presentations, and continued refining the software design and its integration with the hardware. We plan to submit the final report and begin implementation in the coming days.
Ines:
I primarily focused on finalizing the hardware architecture so that we can order the components in the coming days. I also completed a rough draft of the report sections explaining the selected indices and the rationale behind choosing them. In addition, I conducted further research on how vine diseases manifest and the conditions under which they are most prevalent.
Sanjana:
This week I worked on finalizing the design report with my group. As Miffy was in charge of our presentation, Ines and I took the lead for our report. We did a lot of research on the initial design requirements and backed them up with research articles in order to justify them. I found some useful articles that helped provide more insight into the other indices that we chose to add in our design presentation. This was very helpful since up till now we were operating on the basis that we were just going to use the NVDI. This helped inform our decisions on where and how to place the device. We plan to submit the report in the next day or so in order to get going on the heavy work. Other than that, this week was a little slow for me. We finalized the components we want to order based on our updates from the design presentation, and are going to order these in the next day or so.
Miffy
This week, I completed the presentation slides and delivered our design presentation to the class. I also reviewed and provided feedback on other groups’ presentations. In addition, I continued refining our software system design and worked on integrating the software components with the hardware to ensure smooth communication and functionality.
Weekly Status Reports 2/14
Group
This week our group worked together to prepare for our design presentation. On Monday, we had our meeting with our course staff to review the feedback that we got from our initial proposal presentation, which was very helpful before moving on to the next part of our project. We spent Monday focused on a lot of the small details that needed to be ironed out prior to the design presentation. We also began finalizing the hardware components that we needed for our device, trying to strategize how to use our budget and decide how many of our devices we could feasibly make. Once we had discussed these preliminary details, we split up the work for the design presentation, Ines and Sanjana taking most of the research to back up the work we already presented in the proposal, and Miffy taking lead on the software portion of the project.
Miffy:
This week, I completed the frontend design for our project, ensuring that the interface is clean, user-friendly, and aligned with our use case requirements. I also finalized the design presentation slides, organizing our problem statement, system architecture, quantitative requirements, and implementation plan clearly and concisely. In addition, I finished preparing for the design presentation by reviewing our technical decisions, refining explanations, and practicing delivery to ensure we can confidently communicate our design choices and answer questions effectively.
Link to presentation slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Si-VImtCjxgd-M1Xh7eEwuLIQ57bf04Gz-nYAVE-zok/edit?usp=sharing
Inès:
This week, I worked alongside the group to develop our design presentation. My primary contribution was researching how disease symptoms first appear and identifying how we can detect them effectively. In addition, I conducted in-depth research on the different vegetation indices to better understand their roles and to support our design choices with relevant research papers. I also finalized the selection of all system components and made the block diagram. Here is also i really interesting research paper that explains the most common symptoms for vineyard and what weather conditions cause them: https://agriculture.canada.ca/en/agricultural-production/crop-protection/agricultural-pest-management-resources/identification-guide-major-diseases-grapes
Sanjana:
This week I worked with my group to prepare for our upcoming design presentation. Once we met on Monday to go over the feedback from our proposal, we went over some of the common notes we received from several instructors. This included deciding how exactly we want to position our device, how many of them we will need, how the data collected from the device will actually transmit to the app, etc. Once we had these details ironed out, we could move on to splitting up the work that needed to be done for the design report and presentation. I focused on research to back up the use case and use case requirements portion of our proposal presentation. I also worked on finding research to strengthen the testing and validation portion of our presentation. Finally, I came up with a list of questions that we are sending to Ines’s father who is a vineyard farmer in California, to gain more insight on our project.
Weekly Status Reports 2/7
Group
This week, the group focused on aligning on our MVP and clearly defining the goals and requirements we need to achieve. Additionally, we began shifting our focus to the technical presentation and report, and divided the work among team members accordingly.
Miffy:
This week, I worked on three main tasks to support our project. First, I helped with preparing the project presentation by discussing the structure and making sure our problem statement and system idea were clearly explained. Second, I designed the frontend layout of our software using Canvas. I focused on identifying the key pages for our MVP, such as the login page, dashboard, vineyard map, and alerts, and how users would navigate between them. Finally, I wrote user stories for our app to describe how users would interact with the system and what core features are needed. This helped the team better define the scope and goals of our MVP.
Inès:
This week, I helped finalize the presentation and wrote the accompanying script. Sanjana and I also revisited the abstract, updating it to incorporate our group’s new ideas as well as feedback and recommendations from professors and TAs. In parallel, I’ve been working on identifying the most suitable hardware for the project, creating a purchasing document for the required components, and starting to develop system-level diagrams that show how the different components will communicate with each other.
Sanjana:
This week I presented my group’s project for the project proposal presentations. Ines and I primarily worked on the presentation and split up the slides and script, and once the slides were complete, I worked on finalizing and refining the script to present. I spent a lot of time trying to bring together all the things my group has been discussing over the last couple weeks, into one comprehensive presentation. I also worked on my presentational skills, practicing the presentation several times to ensure that I was conveying our material in an engaging and straightforward manner. Once the presentation was complete, our group started looking forward to our work for the next couple of weeks up until the design presentation. We decided on some preliminary steps, and I focused on trying to find more people to reach out to for market research as well as refining the questions we wanted to ask them.
Proposal Presentation Slides
Weekly Status Reports 1/31
Team
After our meeting with Professor Gloria Chang, we decided to make a small pivot to our overall approach. For our MVP, we are now focusing on a stationary device placed at the beginning of a vineyard row. This allows us to concentrate on refining the device itself and validating its accuracy before expanding to a drone or other mobile platforms. Additionally, the multispectral band sensors we initially planned to use are outside our current budget, so we are exploring alternative sensing options.
Individual
Ines
After our meeting with Professor Chang, I did additional research on sensor options and data processing methods. I also compiled a list of contacts we need to reach out to and am currently revising the abstract to ensure it reflects all the feedback we have received from faculty. In parallel, Sanjana and I have been preparing our presentation for Sunday.
Interesting research paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10948775
Sanjana
This week I completed a lot of the work required to craft our initial proposal. I did research on already existing products in the market to see what other competitors are doing in order to understand what will make our project different and better. I also collaborated with my team to gather a couple of customer contacts including vineyards in the surrounding Pittsburgh area. We reached out to these vineyards to set up meetings and have a meeting set for Sunday, February 1 with Ines’s dad who is a vineyard owner in California. From this meeting we are hoping to get a better understanding of farmers’ needs and how we can best cater our product for them. I also worked on our proposal presentation, especially on crafting our use case requirements based on research and conversations with my teammates. We are almost done with the presentation at this point and I am preparing to be the representative for the team who will present our proposal next week.
Miffy
After our meeting with Professor Chang, I participated in the discussion about refining our project scope and software design for the MVP. I also worked on setting up and building the project website, including organizing the project overview, categories, and weekly status reports so that our progress is clearly documented. In addition, I helped review feedback from faculty and made sure our updated direction is reflected consistently across the project materials.
Introduction and Project Summary
Farmers often detect plant disease only after visible symptoms appear, when yield loss is already difficult or impossible to prevent. This project addresses the lack of an affordable and scalable system for early plant health monitoring while also providing field-level insights to support timely intervention. We propose a fixed, sensor-based monitoring system designed specifically for vineyards, enabling continuous, non-invasive observation of vine health.
The system integrates multispectral, thermal, and environmental sensors, each capturing a complementary aspect of plant physiology. Multispectral data is used to compute vegetation indices such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Green NDVI (GNDVI), which reflect changes in chlorophyll content and photosynthetic activity. Thermal sensing helps identify water stress and canopy temperature anomalies, while environmental measurements provide context to distinguish disease from temporary environmental stress. By combining these data reports over time, the system detects early deviations in vine health before visible symptoms appear, allowing growers to take proactive, targeted action and reduce crop loss.