SQUAD Spray Quality Assessment Dome

A tool used to measure and asses the spray coverage on leaves and other surfaces.

The SQUAD (Spray Quality Assessment Dome) is a measurement tool for spray coverage determination, whereby the leaves themselves are examined. Based on aRGB vision system, the white spots of kaolin deposition are detected and the coverage grade on the leaf will be calculated.

This measurement tool can be used as an impulse to further investigate the average and standard deviation of the coverage image of the leaf, as two parameters to optimise the process capability are indices of the pesticide application.

The SQUAD can also be used with WSP (Water Sensitive Paper) and with adapted LEDs, it can be used as well to evaluate the spray coverage with fluorescent dyes.

In the near future, the tool will be further developed to be able to analyse spray coverage on 3D objects as grapes or other small fruits. The pictures taken with the SQUAD can be analysed with a dedicated software on a PC. The pictures are transferred on a USB stick to the system, that generates homogeneity images and accompanying histograms to statistically evaluate the quality of the sprayed leaf’s image more intensively.

The AAMS SQUAD can be used to evaluate different sprayer settings or for example to characterise and compare the operator’s handling of small sprayers in GEP/GLP systems.