Potato operation: computer vision for agricultural robotics

Thierry Pun; Marc Lefebvre; Sylvia Gil; Denis Brunet; Jean-Daniel Dessimoz; Paul Guegerli

doi:10.1117/12.58804

1 March 1992 Potato operation: computer vision for agricultural robotics

Thierry Pun, Marc Lefebvre, Sylvia Gil, Denis Brunet, Jean-Daniel Dessimoz, Paul Guegerli

Proceedings Volume 1615, Machine Vision Architectures, Integration, and Applications; (1992) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.58804
Event: Robotics '91, 1991, Boston, MA, United States

Abstract

Each year at harvest time millions of seed potatoes are checked for the presence of viruses by means of an Elisa test. The Potato Operation aims at automatizing the potato manipulation and pulp sampling procedure, starting from bunches of harvested potatoes and ending with the deposit of potato pulp into Elisa containers. Automatizing these manipulations addresses several issues, linking robotic and computer vision. The paper reports on the current status of this project. It first summarizes the robotic aspects, which consist of locating a potato in a bunch, grasping it, positioning it into the camera field of view, pumping the pulp sample and depositing it into a container. The computer vision aspects are then detailed. They concern locating particular potatoes in a bunch and finding the position of the best germ where the drill has to sample the pulp. The emphasis is put on the germ location problem. A general overview of the approach is given, which combines the processing of both frontal and silhouette views of the potato, together with movements of the robot arm (active vision). Frontal and silhouette analysis algorithms are then presented. Results are shown that confirm the feasibility of the approach.

Citation Download Citation

Thierry Pun, Marc Lefebvre, Sylvia Gil, Denis Brunet, Jean-Daniel Dessimoz, and Paul Guegerli "Potato operation: computer vision for agricultural robotics", Proc. SPIE 1615, Machine Vision Architectures, Integration, and Applications, (1 March 1992); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.58804

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available