Method and apparatus for processing an image of an agricultural field

US6721453B1 · kind B1 · utility

Assignee

• The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois · US

Inventors

• Eric Benson · Baltimore, US
• Qin Zhang · Beijing, CN
• John Franklin Reid · Champaign, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Jul 10, 2000
• Grant date: Apr 13, 2004
• Expiry date: Jul 10, 2020

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06T2207/30256
• WIPO field: Control
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

A method and apparatus for detecting an edge between a cut crop and an uncut crop in a field is disclosed. At least two scanlines of pixel data are processed based on an image of the field. A characteristic line corresponding to the cut/uncut edge is best fit between center location points of segments from each scanline using sequential regression analysis. A fuzzy logic algorithm is used to determine whether to continue processing each successive scanline of data based on the quality of the characteristic line. If certain fuzzy membership functions determine that the slope and intercept values have sufficiently converged, processing of the scanlines is completed and the agricultural vehicle is automatically guided along the cut/uncut edge corresponding to the characteristic line.