UAV Coverage Path Planning For Supporting Autonomous Fruit Counting Systems

Abstract

In this paper, an offline flight planner, that generates an optimal coverage path for UAVs to support autonomous fruit counting in agriculture fields or orchards, is presented. The coverage path planning is the process of searching the route which covers every point of a given region of interest. The approach consists mainly of three steps: UAV photogrammetry, ROI map derivation and coverage path planning generation based on Rotating Calipers Algorithm. The proposed approach, as a useful tool, allows the UAV systems to define and generate a coverage path while including the takeoff and landing points. The resultant path can be dispatched to the UAV operator for the coverage area fruit counting.