Robust Fruit Counting: Combining Deep Learning, Tracking, and Structure from Motion

Xu Liu, Steven W. Chen, Shreyas Aditya, Nivedha Sivakumar, Sandeep Dcunha, Chao Qu, Camillo J. Taylor, Jnaneshwar Das, Vijay Kumar

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

84 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present a novel fruit counting pipeline that combines deep segmentation, frame to frame tracking, and 3D localization to accurately count visible fruits across a sequence of images. Our pipeline works on image streams from a monocular camera, both in natural light, as well as with controlled illumination at night. We first train a Fully Convolutional Network (FCN) and segment video frame images into fruit and non-fruit pixels. We then track fruits across frames using the Hungarian Algorithm where the objective cost is determined from a Kalman Filter corrected Kanade-Lucas-Tomasi (KLT) Tracker. In order to correct the estimated count from tracking process, we combine tracking results with a Structure from Motion (SfM) algorithm to calculate relative 3D locations and size estimates to reject outliers and double counted fruit tracks. We evaluate our algorithm by comparing with ground-truth human-annotated visual counts. Our results demonstrate that our pipeline is able to accurately and reliably count fruits across image sequences, and the correction step can significantly improve the counting accuracy and robustness. Although discussed in the context of fruit counting, our work can extend to detection, tracking, and counting of a variety of other stationary features of interest such as leaf-spots, wilt, and blossom.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS 2018
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages1045-1052
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781538680940
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 27 2018
Externally publishedYes
Event2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS 2018 - Madrid, Spain
Duration: Oct 1 2018Oct 5 2018

Publication series

NameIEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
ISSN (Print)2153-0858
ISSN (Electronic)2153-0866

Conference

Conference2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS 2018
Country/TerritorySpain
CityMadrid
Period10/1/1810/5/18

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Control and Systems Engineering
  • Software
  • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
  • Computer Science Applications

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