Crop row segmentation by K-means clustering for a vision guidance system
AssigneeCase Corporation
InventorsMonte Andre Dickson, Bingcheng Ni, Shufeng Han
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An automatic vision guidance system for an agricultural vehicle is disclosed and described. The vision guidance system uses a K-means clustering algorithm in image processing to distinguish between crop and non-crop features. The vision guidance system utilizes moment algorithms to determine the location and orientation of crop rows, from which desired wheel angles are determined and steering is commanded. The vision guidance system may adjust the location and orientation of visually determined crop rows according to a predetermined distance between crop rows. Further, the vision guidance system may utilize a redundant number of regions of interest in determining crop row locations and orientations.
Claims26
An automatic guidance system for an agricultural vehicle, the guidance system comprising:
- an electromagnetic sensor for gathering information about field characteristics, the electromagnetic sensor configured to provide a signal representative of the field characteristics, the signal representative of pixels of an image;
- an information processor having a memory and a central processing unit, and the information processor coupled to the electromagnetic sensor;
- and
- a program in the memory of the information processor configured to be executed by the central processing unit, the program configured to perform a clustering algorithm that categorizes the pixels into categories of field characteristics.
A method of sensing field characteristics, comprising:
- sensing electromagnetic radiation with an electromagnetic sensor;
- communicating a signal representative of the sensed electromagnetic radiation, and representative of pixels of an image, to a processing device;
- and
- categorizing the pixels into field characteristic categories by using a clustering operation.
An agricultural vehicle configured to be guided through a field by an automatic guidance system, the agricultural vehicle comprising:
- a visual means for gathering visual input about field characteristics in the format of a digitized image, including pixel information;
- and
- a clustering means configured to cluster pixel information into groups.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.