Future of Engineering
Explore the Future of Engineering Blog Better from Kuklu
Monday, June 9, 2008
Urgent! Water Me - SOS Phone Call From Plants
Everyone loves to own a rose plant. OK. If not a rose, it's a dahlia or lily or any other flower by any other name.
But not everyone has the time to look after it. The neglected plants cannot voice out their concerns. They just wither away hoping you would notice. Alas by the time you turn your attention to the plant, it would have reached the point of no return.
If only it had been able to ask for help it would have survived.Botanicalls tries to do that. It helps in establishing a contact between plants and people. When a plant on the Botanicalls network needs water, it can call a person and ask for exactly what it needs. You must be wondering how a voiceless plant can 'talk'. The techie stuff below tells you how it's possible.
Each plant on the Botanicalls system is equipped with sensors connected to an Arduino microcontroller which contains code particular to that plant type. When a plant's microcontroller determines that the plant needs to make a phone call based on current sensor information, it sends data through an Xbee wireless radio to an Xport gateway. This gateway connects to the internet, where it contacts a PHP script with the plant's ID number and type of need. PHP then packages this information and passes it on to Asterisk, an open-source telephone system, which generates the call. When the call is placed, a prerecorded audio file is played, expressing the particular desire of that plant.
Spider plant, scented geranium, pothos, chives and Cuban oregano were some of the plants that were used for testing. Looks like one has to wait for the rose plant to send an SOS.
Till then these plants that have asked; shall receive.
Related Links:
Botanicalls
Twitter messages from pothos plant.
But not everyone has the time to look after it. The neglected plants cannot voice out their concerns. They just wither away hoping you would notice. Alas by the time you turn your attention to the plant, it would have reached the point of no return.
If only it had been able to ask for help it would have survived.Botanicalls tries to do that. It helps in establishing a contact between plants and people. When a plant on the Botanicalls network needs water, it can call a person and ask for exactly what it needs. You must be wondering how a voiceless plant can 'talk'. The techie stuff below tells you how it's possible.
Each plant on the Botanicalls system is equipped with sensors connected to an Arduino microcontroller which contains code particular to that plant type. When a plant's microcontroller determines that the plant needs to make a phone call based on current sensor information, it sends data through an Xbee wireless radio to an Xport gateway. This gateway connects to the internet, where it contacts a PHP script with the plant's ID number and type of need. PHP then packages this information and passes it on to Asterisk, an open-source telephone system, which generates the call. When the call is placed, a prerecorded audio file is played, expressing the particular desire of that plant.Spider plant, scented geranium, pothos, chives and Cuban oregano were some of the plants that were used for testing. Looks like one has to wait for the rose plant to send an SOS.
Till then these plants that have asked; shall receive.
Related Links:
Botanicalls
Twitter messages from pothos plant.
Labels: Agricultural-Engineering, Electronics-Communications-Engineering
PermaLink - Urgent! Water Me - SOS Phone Call From Plants posted by Vanessa : 4:21 AM
