Ultrasonic Arrays for Pasture Biomass Estimation and Grape Occlusion Detection / Detecting and Counting Sheep in UAV Videos
Seminar organised by IEEE NZ Signal Processing/Information Theory Joint Chapter in collaboration with the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering of the University of Auckland.
Ultrasonic Arrays for Pasture Biomass Estimation and Grape Occlusion Detection
Dr Mathew Legg / Baden Parr
The ability to accurately measure pasture biomass can have a significant effect on the profit farmers can achieve from their pastures. One method previously used to estimate pasture biomass has been to measure pasture height using ultrasound. A transducer is fixed to a farm bike and the distance to the top of the grass is measured. This method assumes that the ground is a set distance below the transducer. However, errors occur when the bike tilts and bounces and when pasture density varies. This talk will describe the development of a novel air-coupled ultrasonic array system for pasture biomass estimation developed by Mathew and Stuart Bradley. Improved biomass estimation is achieved by imaging through the grass to estimate both pasture density and ground location. It is the first pasture biomass estimation system to have reported these capabilities using proximal (remote) sensing techniques. This talk will also describe a study performed by Baden and Mathew using a high-resolution ultrasonic array to image through leaves to detect occluded grapes. This is the first-time ultrasound has been used to image fruit occluded by leaves. This has the potential for helping to improve automated grape yield estimation.
Detecting and Counting Sheep in UAV Videos
Farah Sarwar
The focus of this research work is to detect, count and monitor livestock in a paddock using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). It involves no disruption to the farm animals as the UAV will barely be noticeable from the chosen flight altitude. Recorded images and videos are processed using a combination of deep learning and machine learning algorithms to perform the aforementioned tasks. The data set was designed after collecting data from different paddocks to cover a variety of background, weather and paddock conditions. The achievement of 98% recall for object detection and high accuracy for multiple object tracking suggests that this research will be beneficial for farmers in terms of saving time and reducing costs.
Date and Time
Location
Hosts
Registration
- Date: 02 Jun 2022
- Time: 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM
- All times are (UTC+12:00) Auckland
-
Add Event to Calendar
- University of Auckland, City Campus,
- Symonds Street, Auckland
- Auckland, North Island
- New Zealand 1010
- Building: Architecture and Planning Building (421)
- Room Number: Room ALR6/421W-501, Level 5
- Click here for Map
- Contact Event Hosts
-
Dr Yusuke Hioka (y.hioka at auckland.ac.nz)
Dr Mathew Legg (m.legg at massey.ac.nz)
Dr Anthony Griffin (agriffin at aut.ac.nz)
Speakers
Dr Mathew Legg of Massey University
Ultrasonic Arrays for Pasture Biomass Estimation and Grape Occlusion Detection
Biography:
Mathew Legg is a senior lecturer in the Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering at Massey University, Auckland. Prior to this, he was a postdoc at the University of Auckland and at Brunel University, UK. His research relates to the development of custom designed acoustics/ultrasonic systems for imaging, non-destructive evaluation, proximal sensing, and measuring the properties of organic and inorganic objects. This includes research performed in MBIE and EU FP7 projects relating to the agriculture, forestry, power transmission, shipping, and aeronautic industries.
Baden Parr is a PhD candidate in the Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Massey University. His doctoral research focuses on automating grape yield estimation in vineyards using 3D camera technology and ultrasonic arrays. In addition to these studies, he is also involved in research on indoor localization using visible light, acoustic imaging using active and passive arrays, dense urban IoT sensor networks for air quality monitoring, and robot design and locomotion strategies.
Email:
Address:Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Massey University, Auckland, North Island, New Zealand, 0632
Dr Farah Sarwar of Auckland University of Technology
Detecting and Counting Sheep in UAV Videos
Biography:
Farah Sarwar completed her BE in Electrical Engineering from the National University of Technology (NUST), Pakistan in 2010. She joined academia as a lab engineer at the University of Management and Technology (UMT), Pakistan, and completed her MS in Electrical Engineering from the same university. Her research started in the field of neural networks and she published research papers while working in different universities in Pakistan. Farah joined AUT to pursue her PhD degree in 2018 under the supervision of Dr Anthony Griffin, to introduce a UAV-based counting system in pastoral farms. She has published several papers in this field and also presented her work in a collaborative tech-exchange seminar between AUT and AIMHI (Advanced Institute of Manufacturing with High-tech Innovations), National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan. Later, she presented her research work in the postgraduate student seminar organised by IEEE NZ Signal Processing/Information Theory Joint Chapter in collaboration with the Acoustics Research Centre of the University of Auckland. She has now completed her PhD and is working in the R&D department of StayinFront as a Machine Learning Engineer.
Address:Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, North Island, New Zealand, 1010
Agenda
12:00 Dr Mathew Legg/Baden Parr: Pasture Biomass Estimation and Detection of Occluded Grapes using Ultrasonic Arrays
12:30 Farah Sarwar: Detecting and Counting Sheep in UAV Videos