Autonomous aircraft system for pollinating plants
AssigneeArizona Board of Regents on Behalf of the University of Arizona
InventorsKyle Tabor Norland, Mitzy Oros, Evan Westman
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Abstract
The systems and methods described herein relate to fully or partially autonomous or remotely operated aerial pollination vehicles that use computer vision and artificial intelligence to automatically detect plants, orient the vehicle to a pollen dispensing position above each plant, and pollinate the individual plants.
Claims20
A system to pollinate plants, comprising:
- a storage device associated with an autonomous aircraft;
- an image capture device;
- a pollen dispensing system;
- a flight control system;
- and
- a processor communicatively coupled to the autonomous aircraft storage device, wherein the processor executes application code instructions that are stored in the storage device to cause the system to:
- operate the flight control system to maneuver the autonomous aircraft higher than a plant and in the general vicinity of the plant;
- operate the image capture device to capture an image below the autonomous aircraft and including a top view of the plant;
- process the image to differentiate between the plant and ground below the plant;
- determine a center of the plant based on the processed image;
- operate the flight control system to position the drone above the plant and relative to the center of the plant;
- and
- operate the pollen dispensing system to dispense pollen from the drone.
A method to position drones to dispense pollen to plants, comprising:
- positioning a drone higher than a plant and in the general vicinity of the plant;
- capturing an image below the drone and including a top view of the plant;
- processing the image to differentiate between the plant and the ground below the plant;
- determining a center of the plant based on the processed image;
- positioning the drone above the plant and relative to the center of the plant;
- and
- dispensing pollen from the drone.
A computer program product, comprising:
- a non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-readable program instructions embodied thereon that when executed by a computer cause the computer to pollinate plants, the computer readable instructions comprising:
- computer-readable program instructions to position a drone higher than a plant and in the general vicinity of the plant;
- computer-readable program instructions to capture an image below the drone and including a top view of the plant;
- computer-readable program instructions to process the image to differentiate between the plant and the ground below the plant;
- computer-readable program instructions to determine a center of the plant based on the processed image;
- computer-readable program instructions to position the drone above the plant and relative to the center of the plant;
- and
- computer-readable program instructions to dispense pollen from the drone.
The computer program product 18, wherein positioning the drone above the plant and relative to the center of the plant comprises positioning the drone offset from the center of the plant, wherein the offset is based on existing winds that effect dispensing the pollen.
The computer program product 18, wherein processing the image to differentiate between the plant and the ground below the plant comprises:
- converting the image to RGB format;
- blurring the image with a low pixel brush;
- creating a mask comprising the RGB values from dark to light green;
- and
- applying the mask to obtain a binary black and white image,
- and wherein determining a center of the plant based on the processed image comprises:
- drawing a contour around a cluster of white area in the black and white image;
- and
- calculating a middle of the contour.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.