Request Quote

Crop Circle ACS-210 Sensor

The Crop Circle ACS-210 Sensor provides classic vegetative index data as well as basic reflectance information from plant canopies.

Information produced by the sensor can be utilized to quantify the impact of nutrients, water, disease or other growing conditions on plants or crops.

Unlike other radiometric light sensors, the Crop Circle ACS-210 is not limited by ambient lighting conditions — measurements can be made day or night due to its unique, patented (pending) light source technology.

For on-the-go applications, the Crop Circle ACS-210 sensor can be mounted to virtually any type of vehicle to remotely sense and/or map plant or crop canopy biomass while driving through a field. The compact size and low weight design allows Crop Circle to be easily adapted to pole-mounted and handheld applications.

Two sensor models are available providing yellow/NIR or red/NIR sensing capabilities.

Measurements Made Easy

Vegetative index data produced by the sensor can be easily captured using a laptop PC, PDA or other data acquisition device using a standard RS-232 interface.

To facilitate reading sensor data, a special serial data reader program has been included in the Crop Circle Evaluation Package. The S-Reader software is a custom application designed specifically to parse the output data stream produced by the Crop Circle ACS-210.

The software is menu driven and is extremely user friendly. S-Reader operates on an IBM PC compatible computer. Data is stored in a comma-delimited format for convenient access by third-party data analysis programs or spreadsheet software.

Research Applications:

• Crop response to nutrient and fertilizer studies
• Herbicide effect / performance studies
• Noninvasive plant biomass quantification
• Trend / detect plant health changes
• Early disease detection
• Leaf senescence studies
• Turf and agricultural landscape mapping
• Hybrid selection
• Develop nutrient recommendations / models based on comparative local standards
• Foragable biomass prediction

Key Features:

• Easy-to-use
• Make measurements day or night
• Measurements not influenced by fluorescent or other AC light sources
• Wide measurement range, 25cm to 213cm
• Rugged - dust and water resistant
• Low noise performance
• Fast data output rate
• Low power operation
• Light weight - weighs less than 1lb
• Networkable

Optical Specifications
Sensor-to-Canopy Range:	Typically 25cm to 213cm
Field of View:	~32 degrees by ~6 degrees
Lateral Measurement Variation:	Typically ±5%
Light Source:	Modulated polychromatic LED array
Emission Bands:	ACS-210(Yellow/NIR) 590nm and 880nm; ACS-210(Red/NIR) 650nm and 880nm
Photodetection:	Silicon photodiode array with spectral range of 320nm to 1100nm
Wavebands:	Detector 1: 400nm to 680nm; Detector 2: 800nm to 1100nm
Ambient Light Rejection:	Up to 400 W m-2 (reflectance)
Electrical Specifications
Measurement Methodology:	Synchronous modulation and demodulation
Sample Output Rate:	Programmable for 1 sample per second to 20 samples per second; default is 6 samples per second
Operating Range:	0 to 50 °C
Temperature Drift:	< 0.1%/°C
Communication Interface:	RS-485 multidrop (bidirectional communication); RS-232 (autosend, output only) Serial Communication: 38400, no parity, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit
Vegetative Calculations:	Normalized Difference Vegetative Index (NDVI), Wide Dynamic Range Vegetative Index (WDRVI), Simple Ratio Index (SRI), infrared band reflectance RNIR, visible band reflectance RVIS
Power:	11.5 to 17 V DC @ ~100 mA
Mechanical Specifications
Enclosure:	PVC plastic housing, o-ring sealed for dust and water resistance
Environmental:	IP68 for dust resistance
Weight:	385 g
Sensor Mount:	(2) ¼ - 20 threaded holes in base of sensor spaced 3.18 cm
Dimensions:	Width 3.8cm, Length 17.8cm, Height 7.6cm
Connector:	Four pin male Eurofast type, o-ring sealed

Request Quote

Crop Circle ACS-470 Sensor

The Crop Circle ACS-470 active crop canopy sensor provides classic vegetative index data as well as basic reflectance information from plant canopies and soil.

Unlike passive radiometric light sensors, the Crop Circle ACS-470 is not limited by ambient lighting conditions; Measurements can be made day or night due to its unique, patented (pending) light sensor technology.

For on-the-go applications, the Crop Circle ACS-470 sensor can be mounted to virtually any type of vehicle to remotely sense and/or map plant or crop canopy biomass while driving through a field. The compact size and low weight design allows Crop Circle to be easily adapted to pole-mounted and handheld applications. Information produced by the sensor can be utilized to quantify the impact of nutrients, water, disease or other growing conditions on plants or crops.

MULTI-CHANNEL SPECTRAL CONFIGURABILITY

The ACS-470 incorporates three optical measurement channels. A unique feature embodied in the ACS- 470 sensor is the user's in-field ability to select optical measurement bands of interest thereby allowing the instrument to be spectrally customized to a particular sensing application. Spectral configuration is performed via the use of standard 12.5 mm interference filters.

COLLECT DATA EASILY

Data can be easily and quickly recorded to a text file on an SD flash card. Additionally, by connecting a GPS receiver to the GeoSCOUT, data collected from the ACS-470 can be georeferenced and stored for later analysis in third party Geographic Information System (GIS) software.

Research Applications:

• Crop response to nutrient and fertilizer studies
• Herbicide effect / performance studies
• Noninvasive plant biomass quantification
• Trend/detect plant health changes
• Early disease detection
• Leaf senescence studies
• Turf and agricultural landscape mapping
• Hybrid selection
• Develop nutrient recommendations/ models based on comparative local standards
• Foragable biomass prediction

Potential Users

• Federal, state and corporate researchers
• Crop consultants
• Producers
• Golf course superintendents
• Plant physiologists/biologists

Key Features:

• Easy-to-use
• 3 measurement channels
• Spectrally configurable
• Make measurements day or night
• Measurements not influenced by fluorescent or other AC light sources
• Wide measurement range, 0.25 m to 2.5 m
• Rugged - dust and water resistant
• Low noise performance
• Fast data output rate
• Low power operation
• Light weight - weighs less than 1 kg

Optical Specifications
Sensor-to-Canopy Range:	Typically 25 cm to > 243 cm
Field-of-View:	~56 degrees by ~6 degrees
Active Light Source:	Modulated polychromatic LED array (emission from 400 nm to 850 nm)
Photodetection:	Three channel silicon photodiode array with spectral range of 320 nm to 1100 nm
Optical Measurement Bands:	User definable from 420 to 800 nm via 12.5 mm interference filters
Passive Ambient Light Measurement:	Incident (solar) 0 to 2500 mols s-1 m-2; Reflected solar (off of canopy) 0 to 1600mols s-1 m-2 (Available for fluorometric versions)
Ambient Light Rejection:	Up to 800 W m-2 (reflectance)
Electrical Specifications
Measurement Methodology:	Spread spectrum modulation and demodulation
Sample Output Rate:	Programmable for 1 sample per second to 20 samples per second; default is 10 samples per second
Operating Range:	0 to 50 °C
Temperature Drift:	< 0.1%/°C
Communication Interface:	RS-485 multidrop (bidirectional communication); RS-232 (autosend, output only), CAN 2.0b RS-232 Serial Communication:38400, no parity, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit CAN 2.0b Communication: On-board support for J1939 and ISO 11783 CAN bus protocols
Power:	11 to 17V DC @ ~130mA
Mechanical Specifications
Enclosure:	PVC plastic housing, o-ring sealed for dust and water resistance
Environmental:	IP68 for dust resistance
Weight:	570 g
Sensor Mount:	(2) ¼ - 20 threaded holes in base of sensor spaced 3.18cm
Dimensions:	Width 8.3cm, Length 17.8cm, Height 6.4cm
Serial/Power Connector:	Four pin male Eurofast type, O-ring sealed
Ambient Light Sensor Connector:	Three pin female Eurofast type, O-ring sealed