Agricultural & Biosystems Engineering Department

Details: 14 June 2022

Preamble

The Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering was established in 2017 under the School of Engineering and Technology in a bid to train more manpower in the field of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering. The department is currently offering one programme, Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering. The programme is designed with a view to effectively empower its graduates across a broad range of engineering activities seeking practical solutions to the societal problems. The programme has been designed from carefully selected specialized courses within the conventional Engineering fields, and includes key areas revolving around agriculture and food production, meteorology and climate change, geography and environmental management, limnology and biological disciplines.

Rationale

With agriculture being the mainstay of the Kenyan economy and contributing directly and indirectly 52 percent of the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP), there is a dire need to embrace technology reducing the over reliance on unskilled/semi-skilled labor that accounts for over 40 percent of the total population and over 70 percent of the rural people. This can only be achieved by invocation of technology, innovation and inventions. The need for this programme has continued to be recognized through the various global, regional and national initiatives. The Sustainable Developments Goals (SDG#1- end poverty, SDG#2- No hunger, SDG#6- clean water & sanitation), the African Union Agenda 2063, and the National Government’s Big 4 agenda, are the latest policy shifts that promotes the intensification of agricultural value chain through technological innovation and inventions realized through the programme.

Vision

The department envisions being a centre of excellence in Training, Research and Consultancy in Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering with special emphasis on the needs of the industry and society. The programme will produce experts who are effective practitioners of the Engineering as a profession, while underscoring the changing biosystems need in Agriculture.

Mission

To train market driven and world class engineers with the knowledge and skills to pursue careers in research, education and consultancy.

Objectives

To produce graduates with sound knowledge in principles of Engineering Sciences for continued research and development in their areas of expertise and for postgraduate studies.
To enable the graduate to identify, plan and solve arising problems not only in the engineering field, but also at the interface of Agriculture and Environment based on the Systems Approach.
To produce professional and consulting Engineers, who understand and respect ethical values and responsibilities of serving the community, society and the environment at large.
To produce graduates with basic entrepreneurial skills endowed with the ability for self-employment.

Collaborations

KTDA
University of South Africa (UNISA)
Water Resources Authority (WRA)

Research

Research areas/groups
Jeff Ayako and others: Kenyatta University Tiba Vent to manage covid-19 patients (Patent Number KE/U/2020/1401); Mentor: Eng. Patrick murigi
Jeff Ayako; Evans Mutai: Working on a Solar powered Food Drier. Mentor: Eng. Patrick Murigi
Eng. Patrick Murigi: Contractors Registration Dynamics (2016-2020). A Research Report by the National Construction Authority.

Ongoing Projects

Jeff Ayako; Redempta Jepkosgei; Ben Mwenda; Lewis Kago; Louis Lusala; Desmond Smith; Clifford Kathurima: Working on a small scale mechanical seed planter (Pandagun: Patent Number KE/P/2021/3873), and concurrently developing (Pandabot: Patent Number KE/P/2021/387),) a robotic version of it. Mentor: Eng. Patrick murigi
Jeff Ayako; Evans Mutai: Working on a Solar powered Food Drier. Mentor: Eng. Patrick murigi

Past Projects

Recent publications

Fidelis N. Kilonzo, Winnie M. K., Joyce W. K., Juliana K., Daniel K., Catherine M., and Scholastica M., (2020) Wastewater Reuse For Urban And Peri-Urban Agriculture: Why It's Not Happening Soon? Journal of Engineering in Agriculture and the Environment (JEAE), Volume 6. No 2 pg .32-40
Ndisya, J., Mbuge, D., Kulig, B., Gitau, A., Hensel, O. and Sturm, B. (2020). Hot air drying of purple-speckled Cocoyam (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott) slices: Optimisation of drying conditions for improved product quality and energy savings. Thermal Science and Engineering Progress, 18, 100557. doi:10.1016/j.tsep.2020.100557
Daniel Kyalo Willy, Fidelis Kilonzo and Juliana Kiio, (2020) Who Cares? Consumer Attitudes and Purchase Decisions on Peri-Urban Agricultural Commodities in the Absence of Information Asymmetry: in Kiio and Njuguna 2020 (eds) Food Safety, from Farm to Fork: Emerging and Re-emerging Issues, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, ISBN (10): 1-5275-5583-6 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-5583-9.
Kiio Juliana, Kilonzo Fidelis, Kyalo Daniel, Muui Catherine and Mathenge Scholastica (2020) Potential for Wastewater Re-Use in Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture to Mitigate Household Food Insecurity in Nairobi, Kenya: in Kiio and Njuguna 2020 (eds) Food Safety, from Farm to Fork: Emerging and Re-emerging Issues, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, ISBN (10): 1-5275-5583-6 ISBN (13):978-1-5275-5583-9.
Sarakikya, H.; Kilonzo, F.; Gumbe, L, Kiplagat, J., (2020) Prediction Of Temperature And Flue Gases For The Incineration Process Using Mathematical Modelling And Computer Simulation, Journal of Engineering in Agriculture and the Environment (JEAE), Volume 6. No 2 pg .1-11.

2022 TOP 40 UNDER 40

Business Daily Africa judges nominated Jeff Ayako, HSC in this year’s top 40 under 40 men in Africa as one of the most influential persons based on his track record in matters innovation and entrepreneurship. The 23-year-old Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering student in Kenyatta university leads a team of other innovators at Marpcad LTD that’s at the forefront in improving our local manufacturing space.

Currently they are developing affordable egg incubators that are IOT based, they also connect these farmers to the market where they get value for their poultry products. Jeff was also one of the prominent KU students that developed the first African mechanical ventilator to assist patients with respiratory difficulties during the COVID 19 pandemic in the country. He is also in a team of 20 students designing and developing a nanosatellite to be deployed to space in less than 11 months from now.

Apart from the latest Top 40 Under 40 award Jeff was awarded by the former president Uhuru Kenyatta with the head of state commendation, 2020 United nations persons of the year, they have also won this years Agribiz Grant of 600,000. Jeff’s dream and ambition is to revolutionize agriculture and manufacturing in this country.

Jeff Ayako, 3^rd year Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering was featured in the 5^th of August Standard newspaper.

We are currently developing a nanosatellite called KUCUBE which will be deployed to stratosphere, the aim of coming up with the satellite its for agricultural use as well as disaster mitigation, such as locust travel path prediction, flood prediction as well as the control of unmanned aerial vehicles,UAVs.KSA gave us a grant of one million to develop the first prototype which will to stratosphere though our research was based not only to stratosphere as well as space so we have designed and developed two versions of the satellite one for space and the stratosphere. The functionality of the sat is that it has a low resolution camera as the path of its payload that will be taking photos of the earth surface, reason for going for a low band width is to reduce on the transmission time once sent to the ground station the image is reconstructed using a machine learning algorithm. The ground station will be base in KU, in the design there are a set of rules and constraints which we were to adhere to such as the size of the sat had to be 10cm by 10cm by 10cm that's 1U and the mass of the structure of the payload has to be 1kg and not more than that since deploying stuff into space is quite expensive