Protection of orchard from wild animals and birds using USN facilities

Orchard fruits are vulnerable to wild birds and animals. One peck on fruit results in critical damage to the produce. Therefore, it is very important to monitor the nearby presence of birds and animals. Then the actuation of various devices should follow to repel the hazardous animals. Traditional methods have been widely applied depending on the kinds of produce and imperiling animals. In this paper, we propose a method to protect orchard produce from wild animals and birds via ubiquitous sensor network devices, which is applied to orchards along with traditional methods to improve the protection performance. Microphones and camera modules are added to the basic sensors on the USN nodes. Camera images are analyzed for a wide area monitoring. Audio signals from microphones are used for nearby monitoring around a node. Infrared motion sensors are utilized mainly for the detection of animal intrusion from the outside of orchards. The proposed monitoring scheme is to provide an early warning about possible intrusion and damage by wild animals and birds via the use of USN nodes in addition to the traditional devices.