Autonomous navigation inside crop fields based on computer vision

• Grant number: 20/11089-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 01, 2020
• End date: November 30, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Mechanical Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Becker
• Grantee: Gabriel Lima Araujo
• Host Institution: Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos (EESC). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The projections of food shortages resulting from the population increase have been of concern to a large number of researchers, generating a search for more efficient methods of increasing food production. To increase this efficiency, the automation of the field has been an increasing area, however it has been limited only to the phases of direct interaction with the plants. The vegetable monitoring process is still done manually, requiring time and labor. In the quest to increase efficiency and reduce costs and time, the application of autonomous robots for phenotyping research and monitoring of plantations is a very attractive solution. In view of this, this research project proposes a method that makes a small robot capable of navigating within rows of cultivation, using computer vision. The proposed method makes the positioning calculations from images treated by filters and color separation, binarization, edge detection and Hough transform, where the latter returns the possible lines to be chosen by the code as the desired path. Once the desired path is obtained, it will be returned used by the integrated computer, which will be running ROS textit Robot Operating System, to guide the robot back to the desired path. The images used by the system to guide can also be used to study the phenotypes presented by the plants.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

CALERA, ESTEVAO SERAFIM; DE OLIVEIRA, GABRIEL CORREA; ARAUJO, GABRIEL LIMA; FACURI FILHO, JORGE ID; TOSCHI, LUCAS; HERNANDES, ANDRE CARMONA; BAQUERO VELASQUEZ, ANDRES EDUARDO; GASPARINO, MATEUS VALVERDE; CHOWDHARY, GIRISH; HISANO HIGUTI, VITOR AKIHIRO; et al. Under-Canopy Navigation for an Agricultural Rover Based on Image Data. JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT & ROBOTIC SYSTEMS, v. 108, n. 2, p. 18-pg., 2023-06-01. (20/10533-0, 20/11262-0, 20/13037-3, 20/11089-6)

ARAUJO, GABRIEL L.; JORGE, ID E. FILHO; HIGUTI, VITOR A. H.; BECKER, MARCELO; DASILVA, BMF; TODT, E; NASCIMENTO, TP; DOSSANTOS, DH; CURVELO, CDF; FABRO, JA. A New Approach of Monocular Visual Odometry to Trajectory Estimation Within a Plantation. 2021 LATIN AMERICAN ROBOTICS SYMPOSIUM / 2021 BRAZILIAN SYMPOSIUM ON ROBOTICS / 2021 WORKSHOP OF ROBOTICS IN EDUCATION (LARS-SBR-WRE 2021), v. N/A, p. 6-pg., 2021-01-01. (20/11089-6, 20/10533-0, 18/10894-2, 13/07276-1)