Method and apparatus for automated plant necrosis
AssigneeBlue River Technology Inc.
InventorLee Kamp Redden
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of real-time plant selection and removal from a plant field including capturing a first image of a first section of the plant field, segmenting the first image into regions indicative of individual plants within the first section, selecting the optimal plants for retention from the first image based on the first image and the previously thinned plant field sections, sending instructions to the plant removal mechanism for removal of the plants corresponding to the unselected regions of the first image from the second section before the machine passes the unselected regions, and repeating the aforementioned steps for a second section of the plant field adjacent the first section in the direction of machine travel.
Claims22
A method of real-time plant selection and necrosis inducement with a machine as the machine travels in a first direction along a plant field, the machine including a camera having a fixed angle of view and a plant removal mechanism statically coupled a distance away from the camera, the method comprising:
- capturing a first image of a first section of the plant field with the camera as the machine travels along the plant field;
- segmenting the first image into regions indicative of individual plants within the first section with the machine;
- selecting regions from the first image for the first section through a utility function maximization based on parameters of a plurality of previously treated plants with the machine;
- and
- sending instructions to the plant removal mechanism thereby causing the removal of the plants corresponding to the unselected regions of the first image from the first section before the machine travels a distance along the plant field equal to the distance between the camera and the plant removal mechanism.
A method of real-time plant selection and removal from a first and second adjacent crop row in a plant field with a machine as the machine travels in a first direction along the crop rows, the machine including a camera having a fixed angle of view and a plant removal mechanism statically coupled a distance away from the camera, the method comprising:
- capturing a first image of a first section of the plant field with the camera, the first section including a first segment of the first crop row and a first segment of second crop row;
- segmenting the first image into regions indicative of individual plants within the first section with the machine;
- selecting regions for retention from the first image with the machine, comprising:
- calculating a cost value for each of a set of considered plant retention permutations based on features of the regions of the first image;
- selecting the permutation with the lowest cost value;
- selecting the regions that correspond with the retained plants of the selected permutation;
- and
- removing the plants corresponding to the unselected regions within the first image with the plant removal mechanism.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.