A crop scanning system, parts thereof, and associated methods

• Main Authors: Alison Wright, Vidyanath Gururajan, Richard Green
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 21.08.2024
• Subjects: ANALOGOUS ARRANGEMENTS USING OTHER WAVES; CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; DATA PROCESSING SYSTEMS OR METHODS, SPECIALLY ADAPTED FORADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL, SUPERVISORYOR FORECASTING PURPOSES; DETERMINING DISTANCE OR VELOCITY BY USE OF RADIO WAVES; IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL; LOCATING OR PRESENCE-DETECTING BY USE OF THE REFLECTION ORRERADIATION OF RADIO WAVES; MEASURING; PHYSICS; RADIO DIRECTION-FINDING; RADIO NAVIGATION; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE,COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL, SUPERVISORY OR FORECASTINGPURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; TESTING

A crop scanning system for determining a parameter associated with a plurality of harvestable items of a crop, the harvestable items being beneath a ground surface, the crop scanning system including: a scanning head assembly including at least one scanning device configured to perform a scanning operation in relation to the harvestable items, the scanning device being configured to emit a ground penetrating radar signal or pulse and to generate scan data including a representation of the harvestable items; an imaging system configured to capture an image of a part of the crop which is above the ground surface and to generate image data including a representation of one or more stems associated with the harvestable items; and an analysis system configured to use the scan data and the image data to determine the parameter associated with the harvestable items, wherein the at least one parameter includes a predicted size of the harvestable items.