PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (January 13, 2023) — Hongbo Du, Ph.D., a Research Scientist at the Center for Energy & Environmental Sustainability (CEES), Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU), was awarded $915,742 by Shell USA, Inc. for his research project “Automated Real-Time Measurement of Soil Properties with Unmanned Ground Vehicle.”
The collaborative project includes four co-principal investigators from PVAMU: Raghava Kommalapati, Ph.D.PE, F.ASCE, Honeywell Endowed Professor and Director of CEES and Yonghui Wang, PhD., associate professor of computer science; Lai Jiang, Ph.D., assistant professor of mechanical engineering; and Peter Ampim, Ph.D., assistant professor of agriculture.
Hongbo Du, Ph.D., Research Scientist at the Center for Energy & Environmental Sustainability
Dr. Du and his team are excited about the opportunity this funding provides for the PVAMU CEES.
“When we knew, we could contribute to the research in agriculture sponsored by Shell USA, Inc. I investigated state-in-the-art literature about soil measurement instrumentation,” said Dr. Du. “Since our proposal was luckily selected by the sponsor, we worked diligently to prepare a full proposal by designing a novel automatic soil sampler and drawing the research plans by collaborating with Dr. Lai Jiang and Dr. Peter Ampim. During the full proposal development, we received extensive comments and suggestions from the research advisory board in Shell USA, Inc. and made our proposal outstanding to win the research award.”
This project will use a small, powerful driverless vehicle as a carrier for an online soil characterization system with remote control. The vehicle is powered by a battery and can be programmed. The battery can also provide power for online vis–NIR scanning and microscopy image modules including in the characterization system. Dr. Du and his team will then use machine learning technologies to conduct data analysis and enhance measurement quality.
“This project involves automatic soil-testing using a cutting-edge technology with the aim of improving carbon capture,” said PVAMU Vice President of Research & Innovation Magesh Rajan, Ph.D., P.E., MBA. “As PVAMU’s research footprint continues to grow, we hope the success of globally important initiatives like these will benefit humanity and attract more industrial partners, and accomplished faculty, and students to our university to work on challenging problems.”
For Dr. Du, this project gives him the opportunity to bring students from many different disciplines together for hands-on learning.
“This project will help to increase the number of students from underrepresented groups participating in agriculture and STEM-related research activities, to develop agricultural machinery to alleviate labor shortage,” said Du. “We’re looking forward to field-testing agricultural robots, designing and fabricating automatic soil sampling units, and integrating sensing units into the mobile platform.”
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By Jenna Craig