A Study on the Detection of Cattle in UAV Images Using Deep Learning

Autor(es)

Arnal Barbedo, Jayme Garcia ^[1] ; Koenigkan, Luciano Vieira ^[1] ; Santos, Thiago Teixeira ^[1] ; Santos, Patricia Menezes ^[2]

Afiliação do(s) autor(es)

^[1] Embrapa Agr Informat, BR-13083886 Campinas, SP - Brazil

^[2] Embrapa Southeast Livestock, BR-13560970 Sao Paulo - Brazil

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: SENSORS; v. 19, n. 24 DEC 2 2019.
• Citações Web of Science: 0

Resumo

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are being increasingly viewed as valuable tools to aid the management of farms. This kind of technology can be particularly useful in the context of extensive cattle farming, as production areas tend to be expansive and animals tend to be more loosely monitored. With the advent of deep learning, and convolutional neural networks (CNNs) in particular, extracting relevant information from aerial images has become more effective. Despite the technological advancements in drone, imaging and machine learning technologies, the application of UAVs for cattle monitoring is far from being thoroughly studied, with many research gaps still remaining. In this context, the objectives of this study were threefold: (1) to determine the highest possible accuracy that could be achieved in the detection of animals of the Canchim breed, which is visually similar to the Nelore breed (Bos taurus indicus); (2) to determine the ideal ground sample distance (GSD) for animal detection; (3) to determine the most accurate CNN architecture for this specific problem. The experiments involved 1853 images containing 8629 samples of animals, and 15 different CNN architectures were tested. A total of 900 models were trained (15 CNN architectures x 3 spacial resolutions x 2 datasets x 10-fold cross validation), allowing for a deep analysis of the several aspects that impact the detection of cattle using aerial images captured using UAVs. Results revealed that many CNN architectures are robust enough to reliably detect animals in aerial images even under far from ideal conditions, indicating the viability of using UAVs for cattle monitoring. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 18/12845-9 - Detecção e contagem de gado usando veículos aéreos não tripulados
• Beneficiário: Jayme Garcia Arnal Barbedo
• Modalidade de apoio: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Programa eScience e Data Science - Regular