Download or read book Machine Vision System for Robotic Apple Harvesting in Fruiting Wall Orchards written by Abhisesh Silwal and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation focuses on the study and evaluation of a machine vision and an integrated robotic system for automated harvesting of apples grown in modern fruiting wall orchards. The machine vision algorithm designed to work in orchard environment accurately detected apples growing individually as well as in heavy clusters under variable natural lighting conditions. A pragmatic approach to harvesting (also called hierarchical approach) showed that 98% of the fruit could be detected with iterative imaging and harvesting of most visible fruits. The integrated robotic system with global camera and custom built seven degrees of freedom manipulator successfully picked 84% of attempted fruit with 6 seconds of average harvest time per fruit. This approach of selective apple harvesting with a global camera system and low-cost manipulator show a huge potential for cost-effective robotic solutions for harvesting fresh market apples. However, several limitations still remain to be addressed for commercialization.

Download or read book Advanced Automation for Tree Fruit Orchards and Vineyards written by Stavros G. Vougioukas and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-05-23 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern tree fruit orchards and vineyards constitute complex production systems that are exposed to highly dynamic and stochastic natural, financial and societal forces, and face demands for increased production using fewer resources, with reduced environmental impact. Successful operation of orchards and vineyards under these conditions is practically impossible without careful and extensive use of state-of-the-art automation technologies and careful planning of future operations (e.g., training systems when replanting) that can be enabled by knowledge of emerging technologies and future trends. Also, improvement of existing automation technologies and development of novel future systems cannot be accomplished without a working understanding of the tree and vine biological production systems, their management needs, and the capabilities and limitations of existing automation systems. The book aims to provide the necessary knowledge to achieve the above goals in a way that can engage readers without engineering or horticultural backgrounds.

Download or read book Over the row Machine Vision System for Improved Apple Crop load Estimation written by Aleana Gongal and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Towards Unmanned Apple Orchard Production Cycle written by Zhao Zhang and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2024-01-12 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book provides the most recent technology for sensing and automation in apple production cycle in terms of bagging robotics, flower pollination robotics, pruning robotics, and harvest robotics. It does not only summarize the development of technology progress, but also discuss the future trend for unmanned apple production cycle. Though apple production still mainly relies on manual labor, a huge number of innovative technologies emerge during the past years, which pave the road for unmanned apple orchard management. A book summarizing all these new and innovative technologies is needed, to provide an easy approach to understand this field quickly and comprehensively, which drives the publication of this book. This book is a useful reference for students, researchers, and practitioners in the field of apple production.

Download or read book Automation in Tree Fruit Production written by Qin Zhang and published by CABI. This book was released on 2017-11-30 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Automation in agriculture is made possible by the integration of advanced agricultural technology and precision agriculture management. This book, uniquely, will focus on applications of automation to the important industry of tree fruit production. Written by experts in agricultural automation technology from around the world, chapters in this book cover topics such as automated tree fruit production systems, plant stress sensing and high-throughput phenotyping in precision horticulture, the economics of automation in tree fruit production, light interception sensing systems for canopy management, precision irrigation and water management, precision technologies for pest and disease management, opportunities for the application of robotics in tree fruit production, and the mechanical harvesting and handling of fruit crops. The book is a representative, concise overview of the variety of technologies currently being applied to tree fruit crops around the world and the challenges faced by engineers and farmers that these technologies raise. It is aimed at researchers and graduate students of agriculture systems, agricultural and biological engineering, crop and soil sciences, horticulture, precision agriculture, and other relevant disciplines. It will also be of use to agriculture consultants, engineers, and other professionals such as agricultural equipment manufacturers and management professionals who use precision agriculture technologies.

Download or read book Innovation in Agricultural Robotics for Precision Agriculture written by Avital Bechar and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-08-18 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a review of the state-of-the-art of agricultural robotics in different aspects of PA, the goals, and the gaps. The book introduces the area of Agricultural Robotics for Precision Agriculture (PA) specifically the conditions and limitations for implementing robots in this field and presents the concepts, principles, required abilities, components, characteristics and performance measures, conditions, and rules for robots in PA.

Download or read book Development of the Vision System of an Orchard Robot written by Mahla Nejati and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conventional harvesting and pollination methods are no longer efficient due to the shortage of seasonal labour and high labour costs. Therefore, automation provides a solution to providing healthy and good quality food. This project is a part of a big orchard project called "multipurpose orchard robotics". An autonomous multipurpose mobile platform was designed that consists of kiwifruit harvesting, and pollinating platforms. Furthermore, the potential of the current method was shown on an apple harvester. A list of milestones was defined at the start of the project. The goal of this thesis is designing and developing the vision system of orchard robots which can fulfil all milestones. The vision system was integrated into robots and tested in the real world. It includes sensing, detecting, and matching and localising modules. The sensing module was designed to work reliably under challenging conditions (e.g. midday in a kiwifruit orchard). Its performance was measured based on fruit visibility, dealing with challenging lighting conditions and calibration errors. The fruit detection method used was the Faster R-CNN and met all milestones to detect kiwifruit, kiwifruit flowers, apple fruit, apple flowers, apple buds and apple fruit-lets. The detection methods face difficulties such as dynamic lighting conditions and fruit occlusion. According to the challenges, a comprehensive dataset was collected for each module. The Faster R-CNN was successful in detecting 87%, 91%, and 99% of kiwifruit, apples, and kiwifruit flowers, respectively. Moreover, a simple matcher was modified for the fruit, which is capable of fruit matching with various features. The accuracy of the fruit stereo matching method on kiwifruit, apples and kiwifruit flowers was 0.99, 0.98, and 0.95, respectively. Overall, the vision systemwas capable of detecting and localising 87%of kiwifruit, kiwifruit flowers and apples in the real world orchard.

Download or read book Fundamentals of Agricultural and Field Robotics written by Manoj Karkee and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past century, mechanization has been an important means for optimizing resource utilization, improving worker health and safety and reducing labor requirements in farming while increasing productivity and quality of 4F (Food, Fuel, Fiber, Feed). Recognizing this contribution, agricultural mechanization was considered as one of the top ten engineering achievements of 20th century by the National Academy of Engineering. Accordingly farming communities have adopted increasing level of automation and robotics to further improve the precision management of crops (including input resources), increase productivity and reduce farm labor beyond what has been possible with conventional mechanization technologies. It is more important than ever to continue to develop and adopt novel automation and robotic solutions into farming so that some of the most complex agricultural tasks, which require huge amount of seasonal labor such as fruit and vegetable harvesting, could be automated while meeting the rapidly increasing need for 4F. In addition, continual innovation in and adoption of agricultural automation and robotic technologies is essential to minimize the use of depleting resources including water, minerals and other chemicals so that sufficient amount of safe and healthy food can be produced for current generation while not compromising the potential for the future generation. This book aims at presenting the fundamental principles of various aspects of automation and robotics as they relate to production agriculture (the branch of agriculture dealing with farming operations from field preparation to seeding, to harvesting and field logistics). The building blocks of agricultural automation and robotics that are discussed in the book include sensing and machine vision, control, guidance, manipulation and end-effector technologies. The fundamentals and operating principles of these technologies are explained with examples from cutting-edge research and development currently going on around the word. This book brings together scientists, engineers, students and professionals working in these and related technologies to present their latest examples of agricultural automation and robotics research, innovation and development while explaining the fundamentals of the technology. The book, therefore, benefits those who wish to develop novel agricultural engineering solutions and/or to adopt them in the future. .

Download or read book Mechanical Harvest of Fresh Market Apples written by Zhao Zhang and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the progress, changes, and evolvement for apple mechanical harvest during the past decades, which include, but not limited to, bulky harvest method, harvest platform, apple infield sorting, and harvest robotics. Though there are significant progresses in apple harvest robotics, there still is a long way ahead before its practical applications, with existing and potential bottlenecks described in this book. Hence, other researchers would take advantage of this book to have a hint of the apple mechanical harvest history and state-of-the-art progress, so that they can find the room for their new research. This book targets senior undergraduates and more importantly graduate students in the field of agricultural engineering, sensing, automatic, and robotics.

Download or read book Advancing Robotic Approaches to Precision Apple Crop Load Management in Blossom Thinning Stage written by Xinyang Mu and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation project focuses on the development of a robotic system aimed at advancing the field of precision apple crop load management during the critical blossom thinning stage. The research encompasses three primary objectives, each addressing crucial aspects of robotic technology integration for more efficient and sustainable apple orchard management. The first objective was to develop a Mask R-CNN-based instance segmentation vision system tailored specifically for the detection and identification of apple flowers and king flowers within the orchard environment. Achieving precision in blossom thinning requires accurate identification of apple flowers, as over-thinning or under-thinning can lead to suboptimal crop yield and quality. The machine vision system employs advanced deep learning techniques to enhance the accuracy and robustness of apple flower cluster detection, providing an essential foundation for subsequent robotic integration. The overall precision and recall of apple flower segmentation achieved 78.1% and 71.3% respectively. The king flower detection accuracy varied from 98.7% to 65.6% with respect to the flower stages ranging from 20% to 80% blooming. This information was used to calculate the percentage of the king flowers and their distribution in the tree canopy, which provides decision-making information for robotic blossom thinning. The second objective focused on the integration of the developed vision system with a cartesian robotic manipulator, enabling precise and targeted apple chemical blossom thinning. Traditional methods of blossom thinning often lack the required precision, leading to chemical waste and potential damage to the apple trees. By combining computer vision with robotics, this objective aims to optimize the thinning process, ensuring that only the targeted blossoms are sprayed with chemicals. In the field test conducted in 2022, the integrated robotic system used 2.3 L of chemical thinner to finish the chemical thinning for 18 apple trees. Followed by the boom sprayer and air-blast sprayer with 4.2 and 6.8 L usage respectively. The cartesian target spraying system also obtained an average fruit set of 2.4 per cluster after thinning, which was comparable to that of the air-blast sprayer. The results showed that the robotic thinning system saved 66.7% and 45.5% of chemicals compared to the air-blast sprayer and boom-typed sprayers respectively, while achieving a similar fruit set per cluster. The outcomes of the study provided guidance for developing a full-scale robotic chemical thinning system for apple orchards. The third objective of this research involved the integration of the vision system with a Husky A200 Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) and the establishment of communication between a Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) GPS system and the vision system. This integration is crucial for enabling efficient autonomous navigation of the UGV within the apple orchard, ensuring that the robot can navigate with centimeter-level accuracy. The fusion of GPS data with the vision system's output allows the UGV to make informed decisions about its path and tasks, further enhancing the precision and efficiency of apple crop load management. The results of the field test showed that the UGV-based spraying system demonstrated a 68.2% reduction in chemical usage compared to the air-blast sprayer and exhibited a 43% faster operation speed than the cartesian target sprayer, while attaining a comparable fruit set per cluster. In summary, this study addressed three objectives to advance robotic approaches for precision apple crop load management during the blossom thinning stage. The development of a real-time vision system for apple flower cluster detection, its integration with a cartesian robotic manipulator for precise chemical thinning, and integration of the vision system with the Husky A200 UGV and RTK GPS represent a further step towards autonomous apple crop load management. This research not only contributes to the advancement of agricultural robotics but also holds promise for increasing crop quality, reducing chemical usage, and promoting automation in precision apple crop load management.

Download or read book Advances in Fruit Growing Systems as a Key Factor of Successful Production written by Geza Bujdoso and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2024-07-08 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fruit production industry has been facing many challenges recently. For example, climate change, the introduction of new fruit-bearing species into production, traits of novel-bred fruit cultivars, innovations in orchard systems, rootstock/scion interactions, effects of fruit-growing technology and growing systems on yield, growing systems on yield, the appearance of new pathogens and pests, as well as birds and mammals in orchards, organic production, fruit quality and compounds, regulatory framework, high labour input, etc. Farmers need to have more up-to-date information and answers regarding these challenges. Modern fruit production is based on an adequate fruit-growing system, supported by many elements that complete this production.

Download or read book In field Imaging of Apple Orchards Using Stereo Vision for Improved Fruit Size and Yield Estimation written by Omeed Mirbod and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Apple fruit size plays an integral role in management decision-making for orchards throughout the growing season. Early in the season, fruit size is used to choose effective chemical thinning applications. At mid-season, sample measurements can be used to estimate fruit size at harvest. Towards end of the season, fruit size and fruit count can help to better estimate yield, harvest operation costs, and packout. Fruit size measurements are currently done by hand which can be costly and time-consuming. In this study, a machine vision system was developed to automate the process of detection and sizing of apples in an orchard. The objectives of the study were to: (1) develop a stereo vision system capable of sizing fruit at different stages of maturity by capturing high-quality images resistant to lighting variability and motion blur, (2) develop computer vision algorithms to find the metric diameter and surface area of apples, and (3) analyze correlation between estimated fruit size and actual fruit diameter and weight. The developed system used a high-resolution stereo camera pair combined with an active light source to capture images in field conditions. A deep neural network model, Mask R-CNN, was used to segment out apples in images. Depth perception from the stereo camera system was used to convert pixel surface area of each fruit to metric size measurements. The machine vision system took images of apples in a laboratory setting to determine sizing accuracy performance and was also taken to an orchard for field testing. During the growing season, ground truth measurements of fruit diameter were collected from 30 trees as well as their harvest weights. The system demonstrated strong capability for accurately sizing fruit in a controlled environment, achieving an R2 value of 0.98 for two apple varieties when compared against fruit weight. In the field, the result was more varied for different months of the growing season, achieving a high accuracy in August (R2 = 0.75) and a low accuracy (R2 = 0.53) in June when comparing ground truth diameter measurements and the imaging system's measurements.

Download or read book Simulation and Evaluation of a Robotic Apple Harvesting System written by Heng Wang and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Encyclopedia of Digital Agricultural Technologies written by Qin Zhang and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-10-11 with total page 1636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Digital agriculture is an emerging concept of modern farming that refers to managing farms using modern Engineering, Information and Communication Technologies (EICT) aiming at increasing the overall efficiency of agricultural production, improving the quantity and quality of products, and optimizing the human labor required and natural resource consumption in operations. This encyclopedia is designed to collect the summaries of knowledge on as many as subjects or aspects relevant to ECIT for digital agriculture, present such knowledge in entries, and arrange them alphabetically by articles titles. Springer Major Reference Works platform offers Live Update capability. Our reference work takes full advantage of this feature, which allows for continuous improvement or revision of published content electronically. The Editorial Board Dr. Irwin R. Donis-Gonzalez, University of California Davis, Dept. Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Davis, USA (Section: Postharvest Technologies) Prof. Paul Heinemann, Pennsylvania State University, Department Head of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, PA, USA (Section: Technologies for Crop Production) Prof. Manoj Karkee, Washington State University, Center for Precision and Automated Agricultural Systems, Washington, USA (Section: Robotics and Automation Technologies) Prof. Minzan Li, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China (Section: Precision Agricultural Technologies) Prof. Dikai Liu, University of Technology Sydney (UTS),Faculty of Engineering & Information Technologies, Broadway NSW, Australia (Section: AI, Information and Communication Technologies) Prof. Tomas Norton, University of Leuven, Dept. of Biosystems, Heverlee Leuven, Belgium (Section: Technologies for Animal and Aquatic Production) Dr. Manuela Zude-Sasse, Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB), Precision Horticulture, Potsdam, Germany (Section: Engineering and Mechanization Technologies)

Download or read book AI Sensors and Robotics in Plant Phenotyping and Precision Agriculture Volume II written by Yongliang Qiao and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2023-07-03 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book IoT and AI in Agriculture written by Tofael Ahamed and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-04-10 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reviews recent innovations in the smart agriculture space that use the Internet of Things (IoT) and sensing to deliver Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutionsto agricultural productivity in the agricultural production hubs. In this regard, South and Southeast Asia are one of the major agricultural hubs of the world, facing challenges of climate change and feeding the fast-growing population. To address such challenges, a transboundary approach along with AI and BIG data for bioinformatics are required to increase yield and minimize pre- and post-harvest losses in intangible climates to drive the sustainable development goal (SDG) for feeding a major part of the 9 billion population by 2050 (Society 5.0 SDG 1 & 2). Therefore, this book focuses on the solution through smart IoT and AI-based agriculture including pest infestation and minimizing agricultural inputs for in-house and fields production such as light, water, fertilizer and pesticides to ensure food security aligns with environmental sustainability. It provides a sound understanding for creating new knowledge in line with comprehensive research and education orientation on how the deployment of tiny sensors, AI/Machine Learning (ML), controlled UAVs, and IoT setups for sensing, tracking, collection, processing, and storing information over cloud platforms for nurturing and driving the pace of smart agriculture in this current time. The book will appeal to several audiences and the contents are designed for researchers, graduates, and undergraduate students working in any area of machine learning, deep learning in agricultural engineering, smart agriculture, and environmental science disciplines. Utmost care has been taken to present a varied range of resource areas along with immense insights into the impact and scope of IoT, AI and ML in the growth of intelligent digital farming and smart agriculture which will give comprehensive information to the targeted readers.

Download or read book Mechanical Design and Field Evaluation of a Robotic Apple Harvester written by Joseph Ryan Davidson and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every apple destined for the fresh market is picked by the human hand. Despite substantial research to develop robotic apple harvesters, there are no robotic systems commercially available. The highly unstructured orchard environment has been a major challenge to the development of commercially viable robotic harvesting systems. The absence of mechanical harvesters is a significant concern due to rising production costs and increasing uncertainty about the future availability of manual labor. This dissertation presents the mechanical design of a robotic apple harvester. The overall approach implemented was to advance performance, as measured by speed and harvesting efficiencies, by simplifying the harvesting task. A custom, seven degree-of-freedom manipulator was designed, fabricated, and then integrated with a picking end-effector. The end-effector, which is the only system component that makes contact with the fruit, is an underactuated, passively compliant design that grasps the fruit with a spherical power grasp. The end-effector prototype was extensively analyzed in the lab prior to field testing and shown to be robust to perception error.