Robocrop is marketed in California by the Solex Corporation
Following a successful collaborative research project Garfords are now marketing the next level of technology, within row cultivation for weed control between individual plants in transplanted crops.Robocrop is designed to guide inter-row cultivation and band spraying equipment accurately and at high speed. The technology relieves the driver of the need to concentrate on very accurate steering, allowing him to monitor operations without high stress levels. This leads to a better quality of work that can be maintained for longer periods and at higher speeds than had previously been possible.
A video camera mounted on the machine views the crop ahead and passes images to a computer. The computer calculates lateral position relative to crop rows and activates a side shifting mechanism so as to minimize any misalignment. The technology to locate and track crop rows was developed by the THT team during 12 years research into vision based guidance for agricultural applications. One of the principle advantages of our guidance technology is that it takes information from a wide area, normally spanning multiple rows. This increases the information on which row location is based, which alongside a robust tracking algorithm, makes the system robust to areas of missing crop or high weed infestation that may mask crop rows. Robocrop uses greenness in colour images to distinguish live plant material from background whilst minimising the effects of shadows or strong sunlight.
The image above shows the Robydome manufactured cab mounted console on which our software is loaded. Considerable effort has gone into producing a clear and easy to operate user interface that includes a live video image from the camera. From 2008 user screens will feature multiple languages.
Click on this link to view a 33 second 6.3MB windows media format video of Robocrop vision guided inter-row cultivators in action.
Inter-row guidance allows cultivation blades to pass down the row very close to crop plants without causing damage. However, the area between plants within the row remains uncultivated. In many cases the only options have been to tolerate the weeds or deploy gang labour armed with hand hoes.
Within row (sometimes called intra-row) guidance uses computer vision to identify not just the crop rows, but individual plants within the row. The computer system then synchronizes the rotation of a cyclical cultivating disc to hoe between plants within the row. The result is a significant increase in the cultivated area eliminating the need for hand weeding in transplanted crops such as headed lettuce or brassicas. To maximise efficiency both inter and within row cultivation can be conducted simultaneously at a rate of up to 2 plants per second per row. More details of the research behind this technology that has become commercially available in 2008 can be seen under Current and Recent Projects.
The image above shows a prototype commercial within row weeder cultivating between plants of celery grown at a nominal 20cm spacing.
Many growers plant their crops at widths in excess of those that can be viewed by a single camera as used in the original research. The development of commercial in-row weeding therefore demanded provision for multiple cameras and a greater number of rows than the five that could be accommodated by the research machine. Significant work was done over the winter of 2007/08 to make the necessary changes and to develop a user interface. The result is a system that can control up to 15 rotor units using up to three cameras with a user friendly interface that would be very familiar to standard Robocrop users.
Two of the multi-camera commercial machines delivered spring 2008 are shown above operating in brasica.
Click on this link to view a 23 second 4MB windows media format video of a 9 row three camera Robocrop vision guided within row cultivator in action.