70 research outputs found
The use of machine vision for assessment of fodder quality
At present fodder is assessed subjectively. The evaluation depends greatly on a personal opinion and there can be large variations in assessments. The project has investigated the use of machine vision in several ways,
to provide measures of fodder quality that will be ojective
and independent of the assessor. Growers will be able to
quote a quality measure that buyers can trust. The research
includes the possibility of discerning colour differences that are beyond the capability of the human eye, while still using equipment that is of relatively modest cost
Vision applications in agriculture
From early beginnings in work on the visual guidance of tractors, the National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture has built up a portfolio of projects in which
machine vision plays a prominent part. This presentation
traces the history of this research, including some highly
unusual topics
Automated soil hardness testing machine
This paper describes the design and performance of a mechatronic system for controlling a standard drop-hammer mechanism that is commonly used in performing outdoor soil or ground hardness tests. A low-cost microcontroller is used to control a hydraulic actuator to repeatedly lift and drop a standard free-falling weight that strikes a pipe (sampler) which is pushed deeper into the ground with each impact. The depth of the sampler pipe and position of the hydraulic cylinder are constantly monitored and the number of drops, soil penetration data and other variables are recorded in a database for future analysis. This device, known as the “EVH Trip Hammer”, allows the full automation and faster completion of what is typically a very labour-intensive and slow testing process that can involve human error and the risk of human injuries
Bovine intelligence for training horses
A rail-mounted model of a small cow is to be used in the training of horses for camp-drafting contests. The paper concerns the addition of sensors and a strategy to enable the machine to respond to the proximity of the horse in a manner that will represent the behaviour of a live calf
Adaptation of sensor morphology: an integrative view of perception from biologically inspired robotics perspective
Sensor morphology, the morphology of a sensing mechanism which plays a role of shaping the desired response from physical stimuli from surroundings to generate signals usable as sensory information, is one of the key common aspects of sensing processes. This paper presents a structured review of researches on bioinspired sensor morphology implemented in robotic systems, and discusses the fundamental design principles. Based on literature review, we propose two key arguments: first, owing to its synthetic nature, biologically inspired robotics approach is a unique and powerful methodology to understand the role of sensor morphology and how it can evolve and adapt to its task and environment. Second, a consideration of an integrative view of perception by looking into multidisciplinary and overarching mechanisms of sensor morphology adaptation across biology and engineering enables us to extract relevant design principles that are important to extend our understanding of the unfinished concepts in sensing and perceptionThis study was supported by the European Commission with the RoboSoft CA (A Coordination Action for Soft Robotics, contract #619319).
SGN was supported by School of Engineering seed funding (2016), Malaysia Campus, Monash University
Docking system design and self-assembly control of distributed swarm flying robots
This paper presents a novel docking system design and the distributed self-assembly control strategy for a Distributed Swarm Flying Robot (DSFR). The DSFR is a swarm robot comprising many identical robot modules that are able to move on the ground, dock with each other and fly coordinately once self-assembled into a robotic structure. A generalized adjacency matrix method is proposed to describe the configurations of robotic structures. Based on the docking system and the adjacency matrix, experiments are performed to demonstrate and verify the self-assembly control strategy
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