Design of an Android-based remotely-Accessible system to detect ripeness of dates in palm trees

Date palm trees are commonly found in the Middle Eastern region. The dates become ripe on these trees during the summer season. Monitoring the ripeness of these trees is an essential process to ensure good production of dates so that the farmer can derive maximum profit from his cultivation. It is easy to monitor the ripeness of dates with a naked eye when palm trees are fewer in number and short in height. However, a palm tree can become as tall as 75 feet (23 meters) and it becomes difficult to monitor the ripeness of such tall trees while at the ground-level, especially if there are several hundreds of these trees located in a farm. Manual method of climbing date palms using leather belts to detect the ripeness of dates is very dangerous because some palms may have thin and damaged trunks and the climber may fall to the ground from some height. In this paper, design of a drone-based system which can detect and monitor the ripeness of date palms by analyzing the images taken by a drone has been presented. The system can alert the farmer about the ripeness of dates through an Android-based App developed specifically for this purpose.