Frank Liebisch, Johannes Pfeifer, Raghav Khanna, Philipp, Lottes, Cyrill Stachniss, Tillmann Falck, Slawomir Sander, Roland Siegwart, Achim Walter, Enric Galceran
Flourish –
A robotic approach for automation in crop management
Abstract:
The goal of the Flourish project is to bridge the gap between the current and desired
capabilities of agricultural robots by developing an adaptable robotic solution for precision
farming. Thereby, combining the aerial survey capabilities of a small autonomous multicopter
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) with a multi-purpose agricultural Unmanned
Ground Vehicle (UGV), the system will be able to survey a field from the air, perform
targeted intervention on the ground, and provide detailed information for decision support, all
with minimal user intervention. The system can be adapted to a wide range of farm
management activities and different crops by choosing different sensors, status indicators and
ground treatment packages. The gathered information can be used alongside existing
precision agriculture machinery, for example, by providing position maps for variable rate
fertilizer application.
The presentation will introduce the Flourish consortium and the concept of this project using
the results of the first year field campaign. Two key parts of the project will be shown in
more detail: first, the field mapping by means of an UAV. Particularly, the field 3D
reconstruction approach (Khanna et al. 2015) and the use of multi-spectral camera data to
derive weed pressure or crop property maps (Liebisch et al. 2014) with examples for
subsequent crop management decision support. The second part will show the automated
image acquisition by the UGV and a subsequent plant classification with a four step pipeline
differentiating crop from weed in real time (Lottes et al. 2015). The presentation will close
with a short outlook on not shown project packages like automated orientation and movement
of the UAV and UGV and the project’s time line.
Bibtex:
@article{liebischflourish,
title={Flourish--A robotic approach for automation in crop management},
author={Liebisch, Frank and Pfeifer, Johannes and Khanna, Raghav and Lottes, Philipp and Stachniss, Cyrill and Falck, Tillmann and Sander, Slawomir and Siegwart, Roland and Walter, Achim and Galceran, Enric},
booktitle = {22. Workshop Computer-Bildanalyse und Unbemannte autonom fliegende Systeme in der Landwirtschaft }
}
Paper (pdf file):
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