Visual and tactual recognition of trunk of grape for weeding robot in vineyards

Abstract

Due to the vastness of the vineyards in Hokkaido, it is very hard for its workers to eradicate weeds. In order to solve this problem, we aim to develop a weeding robot with a multi-link manipulator, using a visual sensing technique of stereo camera system for recognizing the trunk of grape. However this technique lacks accuracy because the stereo camera system generally cannot avoid the error in measurement. Considering this, we devised a method which defines the grape-trunk area. Additionally, in order to compensate the visual sensing technique, we used a tactual sensing technique using the multi-link manipulator, which can recognize trunk of grape by touching it. In this paper, we developed a robust sensing system using both visual and tactual recognition for the weeding robot.