Across

Autonomous spatial-temporal crop and soil surveying

The general vision is effective precision farming, which in harmony with the environment utilises resources optimally. This requires continuous selective and adaptive control of growth, weeds, diseases and pest. In turn such control is conditioned on corresponding continuous monitoring in the field using appropriate methods of measuring the current conditions of and for the plant growth.
The objective of this project is to develop methods of measuring and managing such information to support the above vision in a way that invite also new innovative approaches to precision farming by providing the necessary information on demand and in time for planning and decision making.
More concretely the project will develop methods and technology for:
  • Computer vision methods for on-site and real-time monitoring of information of the crop growth (nutrients, diseases, etc.). The methods will allow diagnostics of crop condition based on reflection patterns (i.e. mis-coloured areas) down to single leaf scale.
     
  • Spatial-dynamic sampling scheme and route planning for optimised surveillance of crop growth, i.e. sampling location for relevant information and driving pattern
     
  • Implementation and integration of the above methods on an autonomous platform with a suite of existing crop and soil measuring facilities for on-site operation
     
  • Repeated test and evaluation for development and Proof of concept: "Autonomous Crop and Soil Surveillance"
     
  

Photo by Henning Tangen Søgaard & Thomas Bak
 

Hence the project through new research and practical development will contribute to a new scope precision agriculture, which until now has not been seen in its full perspectives, due to the lack of precise and timely information.

Participants
Aalborg University
Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences
DLG
Eco-Dan
Hardi International


Project Co-ordinator
Erik Granum, Aalborg University, Computer Vision and Media Technology Laboratory

Further details on the ACROSS research project on Project homepage


December 2004