Development of Real Time and Robust Feature Extraction Algorithm of Watermelon for Tele-robotic Operation

Real time and robust algorithm to extract the features of watermelon was developed from the remotely transmitted image of the watermelon. Features of the watermelon at the cultivation site such as size and shape including position are crucial to the successful tole-robotic operation and development of the cultivation data base. Algorithm was developed based on the concept of task sharing between the computer and the operator utilizing man-computer interface. Task sharing was performed based on the functional characteristics of human and computer. Identifying watermelon from the image transmitted from the cultivation site is very difficult because of the variable light condition and the complex image contents such as soil, mulching vinyl, straws on the ground, irregular leaves and stems. Utilizing operator's teaching through the touch screen mounted on the image monitor, the complex time consuming image processing process and instability of processing results in the watermelon identification has been avoided. Color and brightness characteristics were analyzed from the image area specified by the operator's teaching. Watermelon segmentation was performed using the brightness and color distribution of the specified imae processing area. Modified general Hough transform was developed to extract the shape, major and minor axes, and the position, of the watermelon. It took less than 100 msec of the image processing time, and was a lot faster than conventional approach. The proposed method showed the robustness and practicability in identifying watermelon from the wireless transmitted color image of the cultivation site.

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