Resource: Engineering & Technology for a Sustainable World articles from September 2005

Resource: Engineering & Technology for a Sustainable World archives from September 2005

Automated instrumentation sorts grain kernels and insects.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... Agricultural and electrical engineers at the USDA-ARS Grain Marketing and Production Research Center, Engineering Research Unit in cooperation with entomologists and cereal chemists have developed an automated single-kernel trait-selection...

Latest agricultural robots and traceability information based on robotic agriculture.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... Food traceability systems are helpful for solving various problems that can surface in the quality of food supply systems: food poisoning, illegal unregistered chemicals, camouflage products, BSE, bio-terrorism, etc. Bioproduction robots can be...

Automated online poultry safety inspection tested.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... Although the United States has one of the safest food supplies in the world, significant food safety problems can cause either human illness or economic losses. Reduction in the potential health risks to consumers from human pathogens in food...

Intelligent pesticide spraying aims for tree target.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... Traditionally, pesticide spraying for forest/tree protection was applied uniformly, no matter whether there were tree targets or target variations within the spraying area while the sprayer passes through. This practice has resulted in...

Robot picks cucumbers in a greenhouse.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... Labor costs are a major issue in European horticultural crop production, amounting to 30 percent of total production costs and showing a rising trend. Additionally, growers face an increasing shortage of skilled labor. Therefore, improving the...

Unloading automation implemented in grain industry.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... Grains produced on the farm are transported to primary elevators by trucks and then to the terminal, transfer, or process elevators by rail cars, commonly called grain cars. In the grain industry in Canada, there are about 23,500 grain cars...

Detecting fluid change in liquid piping systems.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... The ability to automate food processing operations provides opportunities to decrease system wastes and increase food safety. It is common industry practice to use the same equipment to process different liquid product streams one after the...

Unmanned robot tractor uses RTK-GPS and attitude sensor.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... The efforts to develop automated or autonomous guidance systems for agricultural vehicles are motivated by the decrease in the farm labor force and the desire for higher production, greater efficiency, and safer operations. An unmanned...

High-efficiency, low-cost, portable electrostatic sampler catches airborne bacteria, viruses, and spores.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... A low-cost, simple, portable electrostatic sampling device (ESD) has been developed for high-efficiency sampling of airborne bacteria, viruses, and spores. The compact, 2-lb ESD is battery operated and housed in a completely waterproof...

Robot synergy: a marriage of engineering and biology.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... The Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department of the University of Illinois is pioneering agricultural robotics by integrating concepts from biology and engineering. As a starting point, AgTracker was developed--a rugged, simple, skid...

Modular design makes smart transducers plug-and-play possible.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... As an increasing number of microcontrollers, sensors, and actuators are embedded in agricultural machines and processes, efficient system integration becomes a critical issue. A recently developed agricultural bus standard, ISO 11783, provided...

High-tech farm automation for solid desert wood production.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... Potlatch Corp.'s Hybrid Poplar Agroforestry Project in Oregon is rated as one of the most advanced automated large-scale drip irrigation projects in the United States, if not the world. Besides state-of-art automation in irrigation, the project...

Agricultural robots lead the way.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... Developing smarter machines has long been a goal of engineers and researchers. Over the years, many strange machines have been developed to work in the outdoor environment, but in most cases they have never really achieved their practical...

Automated soil mapping on-the-go: one way of making precision agriculture more precise.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... One of the main goals for implementing precision agriculture technologies is to manage crop production inputs according to local needs. It has been proven that proper variation in the application of seeds, fertilizers, and other amendments...

Automating the detection of mastitis.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... Mastitis is acknowledged as the most common and costly disease in the dairy industry worldwide. Estimated annual losses by the U.S. dairy industry alone amount to between $1.5 and $3 billion. A key factor in reducing these costs is the...

Sensing and end-effector for a robotic tomato harvester.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... Fresh produce provides valuable nutritional needs and a psychological boost for crews of long-term space missions. Labor requirements to grow and harvest the crops, however, must be reduced through automation to allow the crew to perform other...

Weeding robot is autonomous.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... Weeds are a major problem in organic farming in The Netherlands. While there is sufficient equipment available to control the weeds between the rows, weed control in the rows (intra-row weeding) still requires a lot of manual labor. This is...

At early growth stages: machine vision-based automated corn plant population and spacing measurement.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... Recent studies have shown that plant population and spacing variability have a substantial effect on corn yield. Thus, an automated corn plant population and spacing sensing system may provide a key layer of field variability information useful...

Nanotechnology: the possibilities of a new science.(Focus on Automation Technology)
September 1, 2005... Nano is a prefix derived from the Greek word for dwarf, and it means one-billionth of something. So a nanosecond is a billionth of a second, and a nanometer is a billionth of a meter. So what? What is so special about nano? Nanometers are...

Calling all mentors.(Inside ASABE)
September 1, 2005... ASABE is pleased to bring you the ASABE Online E-Mentoring Program. The program, which will give preprofessional and young professional members the opportunity to be paired with a career mentor, is in its final phase of development and requires...

Would you go if they paid you?(A WORD FROM THE PRESIDENT)
September 1, 2005... "Would you be willing go to an ASABE Annual International Meeting if they paid you?" [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I was asked that question about 40 years ago when I was an undergraduate at Louisiana State University (LSU). The winter...

ASABE Career Center new member benefit.(A WORD FROM THE PRESIDENT)
September 1, 2005... ASABE is pleased to announce the launch of the ASABE Career Center, a new online resource designed to connect agricultural, food, and biological industry employers with the largest, most qualified audience of our industry professionals. ...

New look for member-only homepage.(A WORD FROM THE PRESIDENT)
September 1, 2005... By now, you have no doubt seen the new look of the member-only pages on the ASABE Web site. We hope you find the layout more user-friendly and easily navigable. As a brief tutorial, once you log into the site from the ASABE homepage, you...

Virginia Tech receives award.(A WORD FROM THE PRESIDENT)
September 1, 2005... The Department of Biological Systems Engineering (BSE) at Virginia Tech received the university's 2004 Exemplary Department Award. During ceremonies held in November 2004, the BSE Department was presented with $10,000 and a plaque. Each...

Mark your calendars for Portland, Ore.(American Society of Argricultural and Biological Engineering)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... The 2006 ASABE Annual International Meeting will be held at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, July 9-12. The convention center is an ideal venue for an ASABE meeting. It is located within Portland's city center, right around the...

Four scholarships awarded to outstanding ASABE student members.(PREPROFESSIONALS)
September 1, 2005... ASABE annually presents four scholarships to ASABE student members enrolled in an ABET or CEAB accredited agricultural/bioystems engineering program. This year's recipients are Patrick L. Henry, Kyle J. Baumgartner, Amy K. Good, and Trisha L....

ASABE Fellow Leroy K. Pickett, P.E.(American Society of Argricultural and Biological Engineering)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... ASABE Fellow Leroy K. Pickett, P.E., was recently named a 2005 Outstanding Alumnus in Purdue University's Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering. This award honors Pickett for significant professional or educational contributions...

ASABE Fellow Calvin B. Parnell, Jr., P.E.(American Society of Argricultural and Biological Engineering)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... ASABE Fellow Calvin B. Parnell, Jr., P.E., has been selected as the inaugural holder of the Endowed Chair in Cotton Engineering, Ginning, and Mechanization at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Dwight Look college of...

CSBE/SCGAB fellows elected in 2005.(Inside ASABE)
September 1, 2005... Digvir S. Jayas, P. Eng. In recognition of outstanding contributions to the engineering profession, in all aspects including academic, research and international activities. Jayas currently holds a Canada Research Chair, Tier 1 at the...

CSBE/SCGAB names 2005 award winners.(Inside ASABE)
September 1, 2005... Maple Leaf Award Abdel E. Ghaly, P. Eng. For his many contributions and leadership services to the profession. Ghaly is a professor at Dalhousie University, Halifax. He has provided service to the engineering profession through teaching,...

Wanted: ergonomically acceptable alternatives: the urgent pursuit: interventions for stoop labor in agriculture.
September 1, 2005... Not long ago, the California Occupational and Health Standards Board finalized a regulation to prohibit hand weeding practices--something which became common when regulations banned the use of short handled hoes in 1975. While the case against...