Agricultural Robotics
Santosh Pitla
Author
07/15/2020
Added
37
Plays
Description
Using robotics to phenotype crops in greenhouses and in the field.
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- [0:00] ♪ (music) ♪
- [0:04] Hello, I'm Santosh Pitla and I'm an
- [0:06] Associate Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
- [0:10] My research focus is on agricultural robotics
- [0:13] Here is a phenotyping robot that is designed
- [0:17] to phenotype different crops in a greenhouse.
- [0:22] This project lead PI is Dr. Yufeng Ge
- [0:27] and you're seeing Abbas Atefi.
- [0:30] He's the Ph.D. student who worked on this project.
- [0:34] So this robotic arm can be using
- [0:39] machine vision techniques,
- [0:41] approach a leaf
- [0:42] and take sensor readings.
- [0:45] So, for example, you can get
- [0:47] leaf temperature and chlorophyll content,
- [0:50] all without destroying the leaf.
- [0:55] So this is an in-vivo robotic sensing.
- [0:59] So, our ultimate goal is to take these
- [1:03] phenotyping robotic arms to the field.
- [1:08] And to be able to do that we need mobile robotic platforms
- [1:13] and that is where my primary focus is;
- [1:17] developing control architectures
- [1:20] for field mobile robotic platforms.
- [1:24] So, what you're seeing here are our test platforms
- [1:29] that we use in our parking lot to
- [1:33] develop our control algorithms.
- [1:36] So there are three robots here
- [1:38] and they are operating in
- [1:40] leader/follower behavior.
- [1:43] So they steer to the tasks
- [1:45] and work in the field.
- [1:47] So these platforms are great to evaluate
- [1:50] our control architectures and
- [1:52] use sensing technologies.
- [1:53] So we have more robotic platforms that
- [1:57] can actually go in-between the crop rows,
- [2:00] so they are very small robotic platforms
- [2:03] to actually sense the micro-climate.
- [2:08] And when you are in the crop rows you don't have a GPS,
- [2:11] so we are using laser sensors
- [2:13] so that the robot can navigate even without a GPS.
- [2:20] Ultimately we want to sense the micro-climates,
- [2:24] the temperature, humidity, solar radiation,
- [2:28] so that is what this robot is doing.
- [2:31] We have a big robotic platform,
- [2:34] which is sixty horsepower.
- [2:37] So this robotic platform,
- [2:41] we call it as "Flex-Ro"
- [2:42] and currently it is used for phenotyping.
- [2:48] So, this is a multi-purpose robotic platform
- [2:51] and it can do planting,
- [2:57] cover crop planting, and spraying.
- [3:01] But for this application we're using it as phenotyping platform.
- [3:06] So as you can see, as the machine is moving
- [3:09] it is collecting images of this soybean crop.
- [3:13] We also have spectrometers on this machine, an ultrasonic height sensor,
- [3:21] so really you can phenotype the crop in the field.
- [3:26] So in the background you see our Spider-cam
- [3:30] which is suspended using cables which can be moved anywhere in the field.
- [3:35] the main difference between the Spider-cam and the Flex-Ro
- [3:38] is you can take Flex-Ro to any field
- [3:41] and you can phenotype large areas .
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