Robotic cultivator
First Claim
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1. A robotic cultivator for automatically positioning cultivation tools relative to a centerline of a plant row, said cultivator comprising:
- visual input means for gathering visual information about plants and weeds in said plant row;
digitizing means for generating a digitized image of said visual information;
distinguishing means for distinguishing between said plants and said weeds in said digitized image;
means for determining a centerline of only said plants based upon said digitized image of said visual information; and
means responsive to said means for determining a centerline for locating said tools relative to said centerline.
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Abstract
A robotic cultivator is provided for automatically positioning cultivation tools relative to a centerline of a plant row. The cultivator comprises a video camera for gathering visual information about plants in a plant row. A frame grabber is then utilized to generate a digitized image of the visual information. A computer then manipulates the visual information to determine a centerline of the plant row. Finally, a positioning device moves the cultivation tools based upon the current position of the tools with respect to the centerline.
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Citations
16 Claims
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1. A robotic cultivator for automatically positioning cultivation tools relative to a centerline of a plant row, said cultivator comprising:
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visual input means for gathering visual information about plants and weeds in said plant row; digitizing means for generating a digitized image of said visual information; distinguishing means for distinguishing between said plants and said weeds in said digitized image; means for determining a centerline of only said plants based upon said digitized image of said visual information; and means responsive to said means for determining a centerline for locating said tools relative to said centerline. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method of controlling a robotic cultivator, having tools thereon, based upon visual information of plants in a plant row, said method comprising the steps of:
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generating a visual image of plants and weeds in said plant row, said visual image being represented by pixels; digitizing said pixels based upon visual characteristics of said plants and weeds; generating mean and covariance values based upon said visual characteristics; generating a probability table from said mean and covariance values; comparing each of said pixels with said probability table to determine whether each of said pixels represents a plant; generating a representative image from said digitized image where a logic state of one is assigned to each pixel representing a plant; and determining a centerline of only said plants based upon said representative image. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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Specification