Grad Profile

Grad student enjoys hands-on work of building sensor

Graduate student Harry Ingleby. Photo courtesy of the College of Graduate Studies and Research

By Ann Dumonceaux

"I’m more interested in the method than the outcome," explains Harry Ingleby, graduate student in the Dept. of Agricultural and Bioresource Engineering.

"Or to put it another way, I’m the kind of person who’d choose the road over the destination."

A recent winner of the $5,000 Harry Toop Memorial Prize for excellence in the use of the English language in scientific writing, Ingleby came to the University of Saskatchewan when an Internet search revealed an opportunity to do hands-on work developing sensor systems for Assoc. Prof. Trevor Crowe’s precision agriculture project.

After several frustrating years of working for companies that directed the application of his engineering skills to manufacturing, Ingleby was excited to be able to do the kind of work he wanted.

"Most of my employers were looking for an engineer to improve their assembly line processing, efficiency studies and quality control. But that didn’t interest me. I’ve always been more interested in the design process."

Ingleby’s PhD project is to build a multispectral imaging chamber which will gather data about soil samples in order to create a data cube.

"The chamber will be some sort of pyramidal type shield," explains Ingleby.

"It will probably have a camera mounted at the apex, equipped with a tuneable filter so we can pass wavelengths from 400 nanometers to around 1,100 nanometers so that it can take a series of snapshots at different wavelength bands so we can create a two-dimensional picture."

Describing his project as "the cutting edge of remote sensing," Ingleby notes that he will be looking for characteristics from the data cube that will remain relatively invariant under different growing conditions in order to assist with separating weeds and crops in the field.

Ingleby explains there is a need for his research on several levels.

"Most farmers apply the majority of their chemicals or fertilizer in a uniform rate over their entire field. But because weeds occur in patches, they’d be better off just spraying where the weeds are. As well, the chemicals are expensive, and excess chemicals are damaging to groundwater."

Ingleby’s goal is to find a method of assisting farmers with weed detection.

"What we would like to do is to be able to separate weeds and crops in the field under field conditions so that we can spray them individually instead of resorting to broad applications of chemicals for weed control."

Among the advantages to an optical sensor system are a relative simple design and the possibility of remote sensing devices.

"Optical sensors are nice because they don’t need to have any moving parts, and they don’t necessarily need to have any contact with the ground. And we may eventually be able to tie that into aerial photography or even satellites."

Though this research will have profound implications for farmers, Ingleby admits his interest is more with the technology than with the application.

"A big component of getting me to stay here was being able to build the chamber. I wanted to do hands-on work. I want to build this gadget."

Ingleby has not yet decided on his plan following the completion of his PhD, but in keeping with his life philosophy, his future will include the exploration of ideas.

Ann Dumonceaux writes profiles of U of S graduate students as part of a fellowship with the College of Graduate Studies and Research.