Applications

Agricultural Applications.    View      

With the closing of the straight of Hormuz to fertilizer exports, and climate change, dramatic food shortages are to be expected.

About a third of the world’s supply of fertilizer passes through the Strait of Hormuz. (Although other sources say that it is a third of shipped fertilizer, 13% of total fertilzer). Now China has banned exports of fertilizer, particulalry hurting the Phillipines. Saudi Arabia and other countries are hoarding it. Russia, which controls up to ‌40% of the global trade in ammonium nitrate, said on Tuesday it will stop exports of the fertilizer for one month until April 21 to ensure sufficient supply during the ​spring planting season.

It gets worse. Anything going wrong will interrupt food production.

• US Farmers are going broke.
• Some farmers are not planting or planting less.
• Irrigation often requires energy for pumping water.
• Tractors require fuel to run.
• Transporting and refrigeration require energy.
• Much of the world's sulfer passes through the straigh of Hormuz, used to produce many things, some used in farming.
• In the US farmers are planting beans instead of corn, it takes less fertilizer but more water, and a returning El Nino is expected to bring the hottest driest summer on record.
• Climate change continues to get worse, and already food prices were rising.
• Drought Shakes U.S. Wheat Outlook, USDA Predicts Smallest Crop in 54 Years

So my attention is turning to supporting agriculture.

Drone Applications.    View      

First Person View (FPV) drones use fisheye lenses to display the view to the pilot. Multispectral cameras are used for Agriculture, firefighting and rescue operations.

Drone camera applications would need to integrate with existing Open Source drone control software such as Open HD.

OpenHD is Open Source software for controlling a Drone.  It accepts MIP-CSI or USB video, and broadcasts it or records it.  For broadcasting, it uses a modified version of WiFi; it does not check for packet confirmation.  This allows errors to be transmitted, but significantly reduces latency.  Low cost FPGAs  do not support CSI, so FPGA pipelines on drones need to use one of the bridge solutions described later.

RunCam WifiLink V2 ($69) is Open Source and transmits DVI video over Wifi.  It uses H.264 or H.265 encoding to compress and then transmit 720p video at 120 Frames Per Second (FPS) over Wifi. It is used for drones. It uses Infineon chips. It brought down prices in that market.

Anti-Drone Applications.    View      

People can hear drones before they can see them. But once they are heard, zoom cameras could find them.

Protecting infrastructure against drones could use an inexpensive grid of upward facing fisheye camera. The grid could both detect low flying drones, and triangulate their exact 3-D positions. More expensive high resolution cameras with physical zoom could be used to detect drones at higher altitudes.

Drone recognition would help in protecting infrastructure. In WWII ships had silhouette sheets to recognize enemy ships. We now need 3-D silhouette sheets for drone recognition.

Space Applications.    View      

Many satellites use video and SDR radio.

Other Applications.    View      

Other applications, some space, some video specific.