JPH09137A - Weeder - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To provide a weeder capable of saving labors in operations ranging from grading of the weeds to removal thereof without relying on a chemical such as a herbicide. CONSTITUTION: This weeder is obtained by installing a motion-picture camera 3 for taking a picture of the ground surface, a processing unit 4 for processing the image taken with the motion-picture camera 3 and determining the positions of weeds, a pullout means 6 for removing the weeds on a signal from the processing unit 4 and a mobile car 2 carrying the motion-picture camera 3, a processing unit 4 and a pul1out means 6 loaded thereon.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a device for removing weeds.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in order to remove weeds that grow in the lawn at golf courses, parks, etc., a worker selects the weeds in the lawn and removes them using a tool such as scissors or a sickle. A method of spraying a herbicide that removes weeds without dying the lawn is widely known.

[0003]

Problems to be Solved by the Invention There are the following problems in removing the above weeds. <a> Since weeds that rely on the human power of workers are slow in processing per person, when removing a large area, a large number of people require a large amount of time and thus a large labor cost. <B> Workers take a cramped posture such as mid-waist, which causes fatigue due to long-term work, and is forced to work under the hot sun depending on the season, resulting in poor working conditions. <C> For example, at a golf course, work cannot be performed during business hours, so work hours are limited to early morning or evening, and sufficient time for weed removal work cannot be taken. <D> When spraying the herbicide, rainwater causes the herbicide to flow into the surrounding farmland and rivers, which causes chemical damage. <E> Therefore, the number of areas that restrict the use of herbicides is increasing.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and an object of the present invention is to save labor in the work from selection of weeds to removal of weeds, and to improve chemicals such as herbicides. It is to provide a weed removal device that does not rely on.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a weed removing device for removing weeds, a photographing device for photographing the ground surface, a processing device for processing an image photographed by the photographing device, and the processing device. And a traveling vehicle equipped with the photographing device, the processing device, and the extracting means, the weed removing device. Further, in a weed removing device for removing weeds, a photographing device for photographing the ground surface, a processing device for processing the image photographed by the photographing device to obtain the position of the weeds, and removing the weeds by a signal from the processing device. And a traveling vehicle equipped with the photographing device, the processing device, and the extracting device. Also, in a weed removing device for removing weeds,
A photographing device for photographing the surface of the earth, a processing device for processing the image photographed by the photographing device to obtain the position of the weeds, and a position of the extracting means is calculated based on the position signal of the weeds obtained from the processing device. , A control device for transferring the extracting means, a means for extracting the weeds that moves on a horizontal plane in cooperation with the control device, and a traveling vehicle equipped with the photographing device, the processing device, the control device, and the extracting device. Is a weed removal device. Also, in the weed removing device described above,
The weed removing device is characterized in that a withdrawing means is constituted by a slidable double cylinder and a picking portion housed inside the double cylinder and capable of gripping and releasing weeds. Furthermore, in any of the above weeds removing devices, the weeds removing device is equipped with means for sucking and collecting the weeds that have been extracted, and the suction port is arranged close to the extraction means. The weeds removing apparatus according to any one of the above, further comprising an illuminating device that applies light to a subject photographed by the photographing device.

[0006]

Embodiment 1 An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. <A> Weed removing device As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the weed removing device 1 of the present invention
Is a traveling carriage 2 and an imaging device 3 mounted on the traveling carriage 2.
The image processing device 4, the control device 5, the removal manipulator 6, and the suction device 7.

<B> Traveling bogie As shown in FIG. 1, the traveling bogie 2 of the weed removing device 1 is a bogie having a device for removing various weeds. The traveling vehicle 2 can be moved manually or electrically, and can be automatically driven by the control device 5 as needed. This embodiment describes an example in which a known electric cart or the like is used as the traveling carriage 2. An XY drive device 21 is mounted on the traveling carriage 2. The XY drive device 21 moves the removal manipulator 6 described later by XY by the control device 5 described later.
Drive in the direction. In the XY drive, the X-axis motor and the Y-axis motor are precisely driven while feedback is performed by a servo drive, for example.

<C> Imaging Device The imaging device 3 is, for example, a device that projects a certain section below the traveling vehicle 2. As shown in FIG. 2, the photographing device 3 is linked to an image processing device 4 described later, and sends the photographed image to the image processing device 4. A known CCD camera or the like may be used as the photographing device 3.

<D> Image Processing Device The image processing device 4 is a device for storing an image photographed by the photographing device 3 in a storage area and performing image processing. The image processing device 4 performs processing such as image correction, image extraction, noise removal, expansion, and center-of-gravity calculation on the image of the photographing device 3 to identify the weeds 9 in the lawn 8 and identify the center of the weeds. Find the position. Specifically, the lawn 8 and the weeds 9 are identified by subjecting the image of the lawn 8 photographed by the photographing device 3 to averaging, binarization, and the like. The processed image can be displayed on the attached monitor 41. Further, as shown in FIG. 2, the image processing device 4 is linked to a control device 5 described later, and can transmit the processed image data at any time.

<E> Control Device The control device 5 controls the entire weed removing device 1, and drives the XY drive device 8 based on the weed position measurement data obtained by the image processing device 4, for example. Then, the removal manipulator 6 is moved to the position of the weeds, the weeds are removed by the removal manipulator, and the weeds are collected by the suction device. The control device 5 also associates the position of the image obtained by the image processing device 4 with the position of the removal manipulator 6 attached to the XY drive device 8 in advance. The reference points are adjusted so that the position coordinate system and the position coordinate system of the removal manipulator 6 coincide with each other. The control device 5 controls the XY drive device 8 to drive the removal manipulator 6 in the XY directions. For driving in the XY directions, for example, the X-axis motor and the Y-axis motor are precisely driven while performing feedback with a servo driver.

<F> Removal Manipulator As shown in FIGS. 9 to 11, the removal manipulator 6 is a pull-out removal section for the weeds 9 driven by the control device 5 described above. The removal manipulator 6 includes an outer cylinder 61 that can be raised and lowered,
It is composed of a tweezer-like picking portion 62 housed in the outer cylinder 61, a cylinder 63 that drives the picking portion 62, and the like. The outer cylinder 61 is a tubular body that covers the picking portion 62 for removing weeds and the like, and is slidably attached to the tip of the outer cylinder 61.
1 is attached. Further, a suction port 71 of a suction device 7 for weeds 9 described later communicates with the middle of the outer tube 61. The tip cylinder 611 serves as a seal portion when a negative pressure is applied to the inside of the outer cylinder 61 to suck and collect the weeds 9 by the suction device 7 described later. The picking portion 62 is a tweezer-like member, and is a member for picking the stem of the weed 9 and pulling out the whole root. The picking section 62 opens and closes the picking section 62 by expanding and contracting the cylinder 63. The removal manipulator 6 is mounted on the XY drive device 21 mounted on the traveling carriage 2 so as to be vertically and horizontally movable. The removal manipulator 6 can be moved up and down by an air jack or the like from the XY drive device 21. When the weeds 9 are removed, the removal manipulator 6 is lowered and the picking section 62 pulls out the weeds 9 to remove them.

<G> Suction Device As shown in FIGS. 1 and 11, the suction device 7 is a weed 9 picked by the picking section 62 of the removal manipulator 6 described above.
Is a device for recovering. As the suction device 7, a known suction recovery device can be used, and the main body is mounted on the traveling carriage 2. From the suction device 7, a collection hose 72 is extended to the suction port 71 in the middle of the outer cylinder 61 of the picking section 62 described above, and the weeds 9 picked by the picking section 62 are sucked and collected without leaving on the lawn 8. To do.

[0013]

The operation of the weed removing device 1 will be described below with reference to the drawings.

<a> Setting of photographing device The photographing device 3 of the weed removing device 1 aligns the origin of the XY driving device 21 of the traveling carriage 2 with the central axis (center of the image) of the photographing device 3 and adjusts the XY driving device 21. A section for removal work within the movable range is installed at a position where it can be photographed.

<B> Image acquisition (FIG. 3) First, the traveling carriage 2 of the weed removing device 1 during traveling is stopped at an arbitrary position. An image of the lawn in the section to be worked is photographed by the photographing device 3 from the stopped traveling carriage 2. FIG. 3 shows a schematic diagram of an original image captured and captured by the image capturing device 3. In the original image, a short and thin white image shows the leaves of the lawn, one weed has a plurality of leaves, and the white of the weed leaf area appears stronger than the leaves of the lawn.

<C> Image correction (FIG. 4) In the original image, the leaves of the lawn are short and thin, and the outside of the leaf area is black. In contrast, the leaves of weeds are thick, long, and white areas are larger than grass. Therefore, in order to identify the lawn and the weeds from this original image, the image processing device 4
To fix the image. As a correction method, for example, averaging is performed. The image averaging is performed by, for example, focusing on one point of the image, taking the average value of the intensity values of the focused pixel and the eight pixels in the vicinity thereof as the value of the focused pixel, and performing this processing on the entire screen. By averaging the original images in this way, the contours of both the lawn and the leaves of the weeds are blurred, but the lawn leaf area is thin and narrow, making it blackish overall, while the white area of the weed is large. It remains white. A schematic diagram of the image thus averaged is shown in FIG.

<D> Image Extraction (FIG. 5) In the image extraction process, only weed leaves are extracted from the averaged image. As this extraction method, for example, binarization is performed by setting a threshold value between the white intensity of weed leaves and the white intensity of lawn leaves. In the binarization, for example, a certain threshold value is determined from the histogram of the grayscale image, the intensity value of each pixel is compared with the threshold value, and if it is larger than the threshold value, for example, the intensity of black 25
If it is less than 5, the intensity of white is converted to 0.
As a result, the grass areas are all black and the weed areas are all white, clearly distinguishable. However, although it is a narrow area in the lawn, there are some areas with strong white intensity, and noise of white dots occurs. A schematic diagram of the image further binarized in this way is shown in FIG.

<E> Noise removal (Fig. 6) Since noise from lawn leaves is smaller in area than weed leaves, a threshold value is set by using the difference in size of this area to eliminate small areas. To remove noise. For noise removal, for example, binarized pixels are scanned and a label (number) is given to each pixel. The same number is given to the connected parts of the label. That is, consecutive white pixels are given the same label. Next, for each label, each pixel counts some. The number of pixels that can remove noise is determined as a threshold value, and pixels having a label that is less than that number are deleted. By doing the above, it is possible to remove noise in a small white area. FIG. 6 shows a schematic diagram of an image from which noise is further removed.

<F> Image expansion (FIG. 7) The image from which noise has been removed is expanded to expand the image of the leaves of the weed, and the image of the leaves of one weed is expanded to one. It will be a statue. The expansion makes eight neighboring pixels white pixels, for example, outside the periphery of the white image. As a result, it is possible to connect the breaks in the white image and to repair the missing part. FIG. 7 shows a schematic view of the image further expanded as described above.

<G> Calculation of the center of gravity (FIG. 8) The center of gravity of the expanded image is obtained. The method of calculating the center of gravity of the image is
It can be performed by the usual method of calculating the center of gravity. Since the center of gravity is the center of the leaf of one weed and corresponds to the position of the root almost, the position of the root of one weed can be obtained by finding the position of the center of gravity.

<H> Other Image Processing In addition to the above, it is also conceivable that, for example, an elongated leaf weed is photographed. Also in this case, the position of the center of gravity of the weeds having long and narrow leaves can be obtained by similar image processing.

<I> Movement of Removal Manipulator The coordinate data of several weeds 9 measured by the above-described processing steps are transferred to the control device 5 and the movement target value of the removal manipulator 6 is calculated. According to this movement target value, X
The biaxial servomotor of the Y drive device 21 is controlled to move the removal manipulator 6 to a movement target value, that is, a coordinate point where the weed 9 exists.

<N> Weed removal work (FIGS. 9 to 11) When the movement of the removal manipulator 6 is completed, the weed removal work is started. The removal manipulator 6 lowers the picking portion 62 together with the outer cylinder 61, drives the cylinder 63, and sandwiches the base of the weeds 9 by the picking portion 62. The removal manipulator 6 is raised while the base of the weed 9 is sandwiched, and the weed 9 is pulled out together with the root. When the weeds 9 are pulled out, the suction device 7 is driven to apply a negative pressure to the outer cylinder 61 to suck and collect the weeds 9. At this time, the outer cylinder 61 is raised to pull out the weeds 9, but the tip cylinder 611 arranged at the tip of the outer cylinder 61 comes into contact with the surface of the earth and functions as a sealing material, so that the outer cylinder 61 can be efficiently put into the outer cylinder 61. Negative pressure can be applied. When the weeds 9 are collected, the removal manipulator 6 is moved from the position control device 5 toward the next movement target value and the next weeds 9 are collected. By repeating the above steps, the weeds 9 growing on the lawn 8 can be automatically collected.

[0024]

[Embodiment 2] In the above-described Embodiment 1, an example of capturing an image of the image capturing device 3 of the weed removing device 1 by relying on natural light has been described. On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 12, it is conceivable to illuminate the lawn 8 in the section to be photographed by the photographing device 3 with a lighting device 10 such as a fluorescent lamp. As a result, the work can be performed in the morning, the evening, the cloudy weather, etc. where the natural light is weak, or the night without the natural light. At this time, the photographing device 3 and the lighting device 10 are arranged such that the intensity distribution of the wavelength of the irradiation light with which the lawn 8 and the like are irradiated, the sensitivity characteristic of the photographing device 3, and the lawn 8 and the weeds 9.
These characteristics are selected so that the weeds 9 to be removed can be easily identified by the reflection wavelength characteristics of the leaves.

[0025]

[Embodiment 3] In each of the above-mentioned embodiments, an example in which a suction device is used to collect the removed weeds is disclosed, but it is also possible to collect the weeds by other known collection devices or to leave them as they are after they are removed. It is also possible to do it.

[0026]

As described above, the present invention has the following effects. <a> Since weed removal work that requires human labor can be performed automatically, the cost for weed removal can be significantly reduced. <B> Since the work of removing weeds, which is physically difficult for workers, is eliminated, the working conditions have been improved. <C> For example, even at a golf course, weeds can be removed fully automatically outside the working hours. <D> Since it is no longer necessary to use chemicals such as herbicides, it is friendly to the area.
It can be said that it is a safe weed removing device.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory view of a weed removing device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a weed removing device.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of a captured image

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating a modified image.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating an extracted image.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram illustrating an image from which noise has been removed.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram illustrating an inflated image.

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram illustrating an image in which the center of gravity of weeds is calculated.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram of a removal manipulator of the weed removal device according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 10 is an operation explanatory diagram of the removal manipulator according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram when weeds are collected according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 12 is an explanatory diagram of a weed removing device according to a second embodiment.

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A weed removing device for removing weeds, a photographing device for photographing a ground surface, a processing device for processing an image photographed by the photographing device, and an extracting means for removing weeds by a signal from the processing device. And a traveling vehicle equipped with the photographing device, the processing device, and the extracting means. 2. A weed removing device for removing weeds, a photographing device for photographing the ground surface, a processing device for processing the image photographed by the photographing device to obtain the position of the weeds, and a signal from the processing device. A weed removing device comprising: a removing device for removing weeds; and a traveling vehicle equipped with the photographing device, the processing device, and the extracting device. 3. A weed removing device for removing weeds, a photographing device for photographing the ground surface, a processing device for processing the image photographed by the photographing device to obtain the position of the weeds, and a weed obtained by the processing device. The position of the extraction means based on the position signal of, the control device for transferring the extraction means, the weeds extraction means that moves on a horizontal plane in conjunction with the control device, the imaging device, the processing device, the control A weed removing device, characterized in that the device comprises a traveling vehicle equipped with the device and the extracting means. 4. The weeds according to claim 3, wherein the weeding means is constituted by a slidable double tube and a picking section housed inside the double tube and capable of gripping and releasing the weeds. Removal device. 5. The weed removing device according to any one of claims 1 to 4, further comprising: means for sucking and collecting the weeds extracted, and the suction port is arranged close to the extracting means. Weed removal device. 6. The weed removing device according to claim 1, further comprising an illuminating device that applies light to a subject photographed by the photographing device.