• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.103-109
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• 2018

Purpose: This study has been conducted to develop a potato yield monitoring system, consisting of a segmentation algorithm to detect potatoes scattered on a soil surface and a counting system to count the number of potatoes and convert the data from two-dimensional images to masses. Methods: First, a segmentation algorithm was developed using top-hat filtering and processing a series of images, and its performance was evaluated in a stationary condition. Second, a counting system was developed to count the number of potatoes in a moving condition and calculate the mass of each using a mass estimation equation, where the volume of a potato was obtained from its two-dimensional image, and the potato density and a correction factor were obtained experimentally. Experiments were conducted to segment potatoes on a soil surface for different potato sizes. The counting system was tested 10 times for 20 randomly selected potatoes in a simulated field condition. Furthermore, the estimated total mass of the potatoes was compared with their actual mass. Results: For a $640{\times}480$ image size, it took 0.04 s for the segmentation algorithm to process one frame. The root mean squared deviation (RMSD) and average percentage error for the measured mass of potatoes using this counting system were 12.65 g and 7.13%, respectively, when the camera was stationary. The system performance while moving was the best in L1 (0.313 m/s), where the RMSD and percentage error were 6.92 g and 7.79%, respectively. For 20 newly prepared potatoes and 10 replication measurements, the counting system exhibited a percentage error in the mass estimation ranging from 10.17-13.24%. Conclusions: At a travel speed of 0.313 m/s, the average percentage error and standard deviation of the mass measurement using the counting system were 12.03% and 1.04%, respectively.