TELE-OPERATIVE SYSTEM FOR BIOPRODUCTION - REMOTE LOCAL IMAGE PROCESSING FOR OBJECT IDENTIFICATION -

This paper introduces a new concept of automation for bio-production with tele-operative system. The proposed system showed practical and feasible way of automation for the volatile bio-production process. Based on the proposition, recognition of the job environment with object identification was performed using computer vision system. A man-machine interactive hybrid decision-making, which utilized a concept of tele-operation was proposed to overcome limitations of the capability of computer in image processing and feature extraction from the complex environment image. Identifying watermelons from the outdoor scene of the cultivation field was selected to realize the proposed concept. Identifying watermelon from the camera image of the outdoor cultivation field is very difficult because of the ambiguity among stems, leaves, shades, and especially fruits covered partly by leaves or stems. The analog signal of the outdoor image was captured and transmitted wireless to the host computer by R.F module. The localized window was formed from the outdoor image by pointing to the touch screen. And then a sequence of algorithms to identify the location and size of the watermelon was performed with the local window image. The effect of the light reflectance of fruits, stems, ground, and leaves were also investigated.