Tillett, N. D., Hague, T., Grundy, A. C. and Dedousis, Athanasios P.. (2008) Mechanical within-row weed control for transplanted crops using computer vision. Biosystems Engineering, Vol.99 (No.2). pp. 171-178. ISSN 1537-5110

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Abstract

Environmental and commercial pressures are pushing vegetable and salad growers away from a reliance on herbicides. Whilst inter-row cultivation provides a relatively efficient method of removing weeds between crop rows, hand labour is often required to remove weeds within rows. A machine vision guidance has been used to address the problem of mechanically removing weeds within rows of transplanted vegetables and salads. The experimental machine was based on a commercially available steerage hoe equipped with conventional inter-row cultivation blades. it was also fitted with two novel shallow cultivation modules acting within crop rows. Each module featured a hydraulically driven disc rotating about a substantially vertical axis. Each disc had an interior section cut away to allow crop plants to pass undamaged. A vision system detected the phase of approaching plants and that information was combined with measured disc rotation to calculate a phase error between the next plant and disc cut-out. This phase error was corrected by advancing or retarding the hydraulic drive enabling synchronisation of the mechanism even in the presence of crop spacing variability. Field trials in transplanted cabbage indicated that under normal commercial growing conditions crop damage levels were low with weed reductions in the range 62-87% measured within a 240 mm radius zone around crop plants. (C) 2007 IAgrE. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	S Agriculture > S Agriculture (General) S Agriculture > SB Plant culture T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
Divisions:	Faculty of Science > Life Sciences (2010- ) > Warwick HRI (2004-2010)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Weeds -- Control, Precision farming, Transplanting (Plant culture), Computer vision
Journal or Publication Title:	Biosystems Engineering
Publisher:	Elsevier Ltd.
ISSN:	1537-5110
Date:	February 2008
Volume:	Vol.99
Number:	No.2
Number of Pages:	8
Page Range:	pp. 171-178
Identification Number:	10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2007.09.026
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Funder:	Great Britain. Dept. for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Horticultural Development Council (Great Britain) (HDC)
References:	Astrand B; Baerveldt A-J (2002). An agricultural mobile robot with vision-based perception for mechanical weed control. Autonomous Robots, 13, 21–35 Bar-Shalom Y; Fortmann T (1988). Tracking and Data Association. Academic Press, New York Bontsema J; van Asselt C J; Lempens P W J; van Straten G (1998). Intra-row weed control—a mechatronics approach. First IFAC Workshop on Control Applications and Ergonomics in Agriculture, pp 15–17, Athens, Greece, June 5, 1998 Bowman G (1997). Steel in the Field. Sustainable Agricultural Network. Beltsville, Maryland 2075, USA Dedousis A P; Godwin R J; O’Dogherty M J; Tillett N D; Grundy A C (2007). Inter and intra-row mechanical weed control with rotating discs. Proceedings of the Sixth European Conference in Precision Agriculture, Skiathos, Greece Griepentrog H W; Norremark M; Nielsen J (2006). Autonomous intra-row rotor weeding based on GPS. Proceedings: CIGR World Congress Agricultural Engineering for a Better World, Bonn, Germany, 3–7 September Hague T; Tillett N D (2001). A bandpass filter approach to crop row location and tracking. Mechatronics, 11(1), 1–12
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/30341

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