Agricultural Structures and Mechanization

In our globalized world, the need to produce quality and safe food has increased exponentially in recent decades to meet the growing demands of the world population. This expectation is being met by acting at multiple levels, but mainly through the introduction of new technologies in the agricultural and agri-food sectors. In this context, agricultural, livestock, agro-industrial buildings, and agrarian infrastructure are being built on the basis of a sophisticated design that integrates environmental, landscape, and occupational safety, new construction materials, new facilities, and mechanization with state-of-the-art automatic systems, using calculation models and computer programs. It is necessary to promote research and dissemination of results in the field of mechanization and agricultural structures, specifically with regard to farm building and rural landscape, land and water use and environment, power and machinery, information systems and precision farming, processing and post-harvest technology and logistics, energy and non-food production technology, systems engineering and management, and fruit and vegetable cultivation systems. This Special Issue focuses on the role that mechanization and agricultural structures play in the production of high-quality food and continuously over time. For this reason, it publishes highly interdisciplinary quality studies from disparate research fields including agriculture, engineering design, calculation and modeling, landscaping, environmentalism, and even ergonomics and occupational risk prevention

Selected Papers from the 2018 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for the Sea

This Special Issue is devoted to recent developments in instrumentation and measurement techniques applied to the marine field. ¶The sea is the medium that has allowed people to travel from one continent to another using vessels, even today despite the use of aircraft. It has also been acting as a great reservoir and source of food for all living beings. However, for many generations, it served as a landfill for depositing conventional and nuclear wastes, especially in its deep seabeds, and we are assisting in a race to exploit minerals and resources, different from foods, encompassed in it. Its health is a great challenge for the survival of all humanity since it is one of the most important environmental components targeted by global warming. ¶ As everyone may know, measuring is a step that generates substantial knowledge about a phenomenon or an asset, which is the basis for proposing correct solutions and making proper decisions. However, measurements in the sea environment pose unique difficulties and opportunities, which is made clear from the research results presented in this Special Issue

Integrated Sensor Orientation on Micro Aerial Vehicles

Mapping with Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs whose weight does not exceed 5 kg) is gaining importance in applications, such as corridor mapping, road and pipeline inspections, or mapping of large areas with homogeneous surface structure, e.g. forest or agricultural fields. When cm-level accuracy is required, the classical approach of sensor orientation does not deliver satisfactory results unless a large number of ground control points (GCPs) is regularly distributed in the mapped area. This may not be a feasible method either due to the associated costs or terrain inaccessibility. This thesis addresses such issues by presenting a development of MAV platforms with navigation and imaging sensors that are able to perform integrated sensor orientation (ISO). This method combines image measurements with GNSS or GNSS/IMU (Global Navigation Satellite System/Inertial Measurement Unit) observations. This innovative approach allows mapping with cm-level accuracy without the support of GCPs, even in geometrically challenging scenarios, such as corridors. The presented solution also helps in situations where automatic image observations cannot be generated, e.g. over water, sand, or other surfaces with low variations of texture. The application of ISO to MAV photogrammetry is a novel solution and its implementation brings new engineering and research challenges due to a limited payload capacity and quality of employed sensors on-board. These challenges are addressed using traditional as well as novel methods of treating observations within the developed processing software. The capability of the constructed MAV platforms and processing tools is tested in real mapping scenarios. It is empirically confirmed that accurate aerial control combined with a state-of-the-art calibration and processing can deliver cm-level ground accuracy, even in the most demanding projects. This thesis also presents an innovative way of mission planning in challenging environments. Indeed, a thorough pre-flight analysis is important not only for obtaining satisfactory mapping quality, but photogrammetric missions must be carried out in compliance with state regulations

Ionosphere Monitoring with Remote Sensing

This book focuses on the characterization of the physical properties of the Earth’s ionosphere, contributing to unveiling the nature of several processes responsible for a plethora of space weather-related phenomena taking place in a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. This is made possible by the exploitation of a huge amount of high-quality data derived from both remote sensing and in situ facilities such as ionosondes, radars, satellites and Global Navigation Satellite Systems receivers