Abstract
An advanced, proof-of-concept real-time plant discrimination system is presented that employs two visible (red) laser diodes (635. nm, 685. nm) and one near-infrared (NIR) laser diode (785. nm). The lasers sequentially illuminate the target ground area and a linear sensor array measures the intensities of the reflected laser beams. The spectral reflectance measurements are then processed by an embedded microcontroller running a discrimination algorithm based on dual Normalised Difference Vegetation Indices (NDVI). Pre-determined plant spectral signatures are used to define unique regions-of-classification for use by the discrimination algorithm. Measured aggregated NDVI values that fall within a region-of-classification (RoC) representing an unwanted plant generate a spray control signal that activates an external spray module, thus allowing for a targeted spraying operation. Dynamic outdoor evaluation of the advanced, proof-of-concept real-time plant discrimination system, using three different plant species and control data determined under static laboratory conditions, shows that the system can perform green-from-green plant detection and accomplish practical discrimination for a vehicle speed of 3. km/h.
Keywords
Precision agriculture, Spectral reflectance, Optoelectronics, Embedded systems, Sensing, Real-time weed discrimination
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
2015
Faculty
Faculty of Health, Engineering and Science
Publisher
Elsevier
School
School of Engineering
RAS ID
21557
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Comments
Symonds, P., Paap, A., Alameh, K., Rowe, J., & Miller, C. (2015). A real-time plant discrimination system utilising discrete reflectance spectroscopy. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 117, 57-69. Available here