Local Motion Planner for Autonomous Navigation in Vineyards with a RGB-D Camera-Based Algorithm and Deep Learning Synergy

With the advent of agriculture 3.0 and 4.0, researchers are increasingly focusing on the development of innovative smart farming and precision agriculture technologies by introducing automation and robotics into the agricultural processes. Autonomous agricultural field machines have been gaining significant attention from farmers and industries to reduce costs, human workload, and required resources. Nevertheless, achieving sufficient autonomous navigation capabilities requires the simultaneous cooperation of different processes; localization, mapping, and path planning are just some of the steps that aim at providing to the machine the right set of skills to operate in semi-structured and unstructured environments. In this context, this study presents a low-cost local motion planner for autonomous navigation in vineyards based only on an RGB-D camera, low range hardware, and a dual layer control algorithm. The first algorithm exploits the disparity map and its depth representation to generate a proportional control for the robotic platform. Concurrently, a second back-up algorithm, based on representations learning and resilient to illumination variations, can take control of the machine in case of a momentaneous failure of the first block. Moreover, due to the double nature of the system, after initial training of the deep learning model with an initial dataset, the strict synergy between the two algorithms opens the possibility of exploiting new automatically labeled data, coming from the field, to extend the existing model knowledge. The machine learning algorithm has been trained and tested, using transfer learning, with acquired images during different field surveys in the North region of Italy and then optimized for on-device inference with model pruning and quantization. Finally, the overall system has been validated with a customized robot platform in the relevant environment

State-Of-The-Art Convolutional Neural Networks for Smart Farms: A Review

International audienceFarming has seen a number of technological transformations in the last decade, becoming more industrialized and technology-driven. This means use of Internet of Things(IoT), Cloud Computing(CC), Big Data (BD) and automation to gain better control over the process of farming. As the use of these technologies in farms has grown exponentially with massive data production, there is need to develop and use state-of-the-art tools in order to gain more insight from the data within reasonable time. In this paper, we present an initial understanding of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), the recent architectures of state-of-the-art CNN and their underlying complexities. Then we propose a classification taxonomy tailored for agricultural application of CNN. Finally , we present a comprehensive review of research dedicated to applications of state-of-the-art CNNs in agricultural production systems. Our contribution is in twofold. First, for end users of agricultural deep learning tools, our benchmarking finding can serve as a guide to selecting appropriate architecture to use. Second, for agricultural software developers of deep learning tools, our in-depth analysis explains the state-of-the-art CNN complexities and points out possible future directions to further optimize the running performance

Effectiveness of Deep Feature Extraction Algorithm in Determining the Maturity of Fruits: A Review

Intelligent farming technology helps farmers overcome tough obstacles in the farming process, such as increased sup-plier costs, a lack of labour, customer satisfaction, and more. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a remarkable technology in smart farming because it deeply understands the issue and can help farmers make decisions. This article's main objective is to identify and examine the concepts and techniques of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) technology that could aid in classifying the ripeness stages of fruit in intelligent farming. This paper systematically reviews 18 previous works for classifying the ripeness stages of fruit. This review outlines the most commonly used algorithms, activation functions, optimisation functions, and platforms for algorithm implementation. In addition, found that not all algorithms are suitable for even near-equivalent processes. Therefore, this study suggests the intensity of the CNN algorithms concerning various metrics to find the suitability for the operations/applications. Finally, this paper offers some future research directions in the ripeness classification of fruits

Application of Machine Learning Identification and Classification of Muturu and Keteku Cattle Species for a Smart Agricultural Practice in Developing Countries such as Nigeria

Smart technologies have drastically reshaped the traditional methods of practicing agriculture as witnessed in husbandry. In this paper, a novel application of machine learning identification and classification of Muturu and Keteku cattle species in Nigeria was proposed as the mainstream model that enables the precision and intelligence perception of animal husbandry for a smart agricultural practice using enhanced mask region-based convolutional neural networks (mask R-CNN). A performance accuracy of 0.92 mAP (mean Average Precision) was achieved by the enhanced mask R-CNN model, making it on a par with the existing models

Paddy Rice Smart Farming

It is anticipated that machine learning (ML) and the internet of things (IoT) would significantly impact smart farming and engage the entire supply chain, in particular for the production of rice. Rice smart farming offers new capabilities to foresee changes and find possibilities thanks to the growing amount and variety of data gathered and obtained by emerging technologies in the Internet of Things (IoT). The accuracy of the models created through the use of ML algorithms is significantly impacted by the quality of the data obtained from sensor readings. These three components, machine learning (ML), the internet of things (IoT), and agriculture have been used extensively to improve all aspects of rice production processes in agriculture. As a result, traditional rice farming practices have been transformed into a new era known as rice smart farming or rice precision agriculture. We do a study of the most recent research that has been done on the application of intelligent data processing technology in agriculture, namely in the production of rice, in this paper. We analyze the applications of machine learning in a variety of scenarios, including smart irrigation for paddy rice, predicting paddy rice yield estimation, predicting droughts and floods, monitoring paddy rice disease, and paddy rice sample classification. In each of these scenarios, we describe the data that was captured and elaborate on the role that machine learning algorithms play in paddy rice smart agriculture. This paper also presents a framework that maps the activities defined in rice smart farming, data used in data modeling, and machine learning algorithms used for each activity defined in the production and post-production phases of paddy rice.