Headland Identification and Ranging Method for Autonomous Agricultural Machines

Headland boundary identification and ranging are the key supporting technologies for the automatic driving of intelligent agricultural machinery, and they are also the basis for controlling operational behaviors such as autonomous turning and machine lifting. The complex, unstructured environments o...

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Main Authors: Hui Liu, Kun Li, Luyao Ma, Zhijun Meng
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2024-02-01
Series:Agriculture
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/2/243
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author Hui Liu
Kun Li
Luyao Ma
Zhijun Meng
author_facet Hui Liu
Kun Li
Luyao Ma
Zhijun Meng
author_sort Hui Liu
collection DOAJ
description Headland boundary identification and ranging are the key supporting technologies for the automatic driving of intelligent agricultural machinery, and they are also the basis for controlling operational behaviors such as autonomous turning and machine lifting. The complex, unstructured environments of farmland headlands render traditional image feature extraction methods less accurate and adaptable. This study utilizes deep learning and binocular vision technologies to develop a headland boundary identification and ranging system built upon the existing automatic guided tractor test platform. A headland image annotation dataset was constructed, and the MobileNetV3 network, notable for its compact model structure, was employed to achieve binary classification recognition of farmland and headland images. An improved MV3-DeeplabV3+ image segmentation network model, leveraging an attention mechanism, was constructed, achieving a high mean intersection over union (<i>MIoU)</i> value of 92.08% and enabling fast and accurate detection of headland boundaries. Following the detection of headland boundaries, binocular stereo vision technology was employed to measure the boundary distances. Field experiment results indicate that the system’s average relative errors of distance in ranging at distances of 25 m, 20 m, and 15 m are 6.72%, 4.80%, and 4.35%, respectively. This system is capable of meeting the real-time detection requirements for headland boundaries.
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spelling doaj.art-3dcbce584ad141c29027ad02504134d42024-02-23T15:03:42ZengMDPI AGAgriculture2077-04722024-02-0114224310.3390/agriculture14020243Headland Identification and Ranging Method for Autonomous Agricultural MachinesHui Liu0Kun Li1Luyao Ma2Zhijun Meng3Information Engineering College, Capital Normal University, Beijing 100048, ChinaInformation Engineering College, Capital Normal University, Beijing 100048, ChinaInformation Engineering College, Capital Normal University, Beijing 100048, ChinaNational Research Center of Intelligent Equipment for Agriculture, Beijing 100097, ChinaHeadland boundary identification and ranging are the key supporting technologies for the automatic driving of intelligent agricultural machinery, and they are also the basis for controlling operational behaviors such as autonomous turning and machine lifting. The complex, unstructured environments of farmland headlands render traditional image feature extraction methods less accurate and adaptable. This study utilizes deep learning and binocular vision technologies to develop a headland boundary identification and ranging system built upon the existing automatic guided tractor test platform. A headland image annotation dataset was constructed, and the MobileNetV3 network, notable for its compact model structure, was employed to achieve binary classification recognition of farmland and headland images. An improved MV3-DeeplabV3+ image segmentation network model, leveraging an attention mechanism, was constructed, achieving a high mean intersection over union (<i>MIoU)</i> value of 92.08% and enabling fast and accurate detection of headland boundaries. Following the detection of headland boundaries, binocular stereo vision technology was employed to measure the boundary distances. Field experiment results indicate that the system’s average relative errors of distance in ranging at distances of 25 m, 20 m, and 15 m are 6.72%, 4.80%, and 4.35%, respectively. This system is capable of meeting the real-time detection requirements for headland boundaries.https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/2/243autonomous agricultural machineryheadlandimage recognitiondeep learningbinocular vision
spellingShingle Hui Liu
Kun Li
Luyao Ma
Zhijun Meng
Headland Identification and Ranging Method for Autonomous Agricultural Machines
Agriculture
autonomous agricultural machinery
headland
image recognition
deep learning
binocular vision
title Headland Identification and Ranging Method for Autonomous Agricultural Machines
title_full Headland Identification and Ranging Method for Autonomous Agricultural Machines
title_fullStr Headland Identification and Ranging Method for Autonomous Agricultural Machines
title_full_unstemmed Headland Identification and Ranging Method for Autonomous Agricultural Machines
title_short Headland Identification and Ranging Method for Autonomous Agricultural Machines
title_sort headland identification and ranging method for autonomous agricultural machines
topic autonomous agricultural machinery
headland
image recognition
deep learning
binocular vision
url https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/2/243
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AT kunli headlandidentificationandrangingmethodforautonomousagriculturalmachines
AT luyaoma headlandidentificationandrangingmethodforautonomousagriculturalmachines
AT zhijunmeng headlandidentificationandrangingmethodforautonomousagriculturalmachines