Systems and methods for autonomous crop maintenance and seedline tracking
AssigneeCarbon Autonomous Robotic Systems Inc.
InventorsSimon COCHRANE, Yevgeny ROIT, Brian Phillip STARK
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Systems and methods for autonomous crop maintenance and seedline tracking in agricultural environments. The methods involve determining crop density within a field, generating kernel density estimations, and identifying seedline locations by analyzing local minima in crop density and their persistence. Virtual bands are generated around the seedlines to focus maintenance efforts, such as weeding or thinning, on these areas while ignoring out-of-band regions.
Claims20
A method for autonomous crop maintenance and seedline tracking, the method comprising:
- determining, by a processor, a density of one or more crops in a region;
- generating, by the processor, a kernel density estimation (KDE) of the one or more crops;
- identifying, by the processor, local minima in the density of the crops;
- determining, by the processor, a persistence of each local minimum of the local minima;
- selecting, by the processor, a subset of the local minima based on the persistence,
- clustering, by the processor, the crops into a number of clusters corresponding to the number of seedlines based on locations of the subset of the local minima;
- determining, by the processor, a position of each cluster along an axis of the seedline;
- determining, by the processor, seedline locations of the number of seedlines based on the position of each cluster;
- and
- generating, by the processor, one or more virtual bands around the seedline locations.
An autonomous plant targeting system comprising:
- a processor;
- and
- a memory comprising instructions stored thereon, which, when executed by the processor causes the system to perform operations comprising:
- determining a density of one or more crops in a region;
- generating a kernel density estimation (KDE) of the one or more crops;
- identifying local minima in the density of the crops;
- determining a persistence of each local minimum of the local minima;
- selecting a subset of the local minima based on the persistence,
- clustering the crops into a number of clusters corresponding to the number of seedlines based on locations of the subset of the local minima;
- determining a position of each cluster along an axis of the seedlines;
- determining seedline locations of the number of seedlines based on the position of each cluster;
- and
- generating one or more virtual bands around the seedline locations.
A non-transitory computer readable medium containing computer executable instructions that, when executed by a computer hardware arrangement, cause the computer hardware arrangement to perform procedures comprising:
- determining, by a processor, a density of one or more crops in a region;
- generating, by the processor, a kernel density estimation (KDE) of the one or more crops;
- identifying, by the processor, local minima in the density of the crops;
- determining, by the processor, a persistence of each local minimum of the local minima;
- selecting, by the processor, a subset of the local minima based on the persistence,
- clustering, by the processor, the crops into a number of clusters corresponding to the number of seedlines based on locations of the subset of the local minima;
- determining, by the processor, a position of each cluster along an axis of the seedlines;
- determining, by the processor, seedline locations of the number of seedlines based on the position of each cluster;
- and
- generating, by the processor, one or more virtual bands around the seedline locations.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.