Development of Seeding Rate Monitoring System Applicable to a Mechanical Pot-Seeding Machine

Abstract

In this study, we developed a monitoring system to accurately track the seeding rate and to identify the locations where the mechanical pot-seeding machine failed to sow seeds correctly. The monitoring system employs diverse image processing techniques, including the Hough transform, hue–saturation–value color space conversion, image morphology techniques, and Gaussian blur, to accurately pinpoint the seeding rate and the locations where seeds are missing. To determine the optimal operating conditions for the seeding rate monitoring system, a factorial experiment was conducted by varying the brightness and saturation values of the image data. When the derived optimal operating conditions were applied, the system consistently achieved a 100% seed recognition rate across various seeding conditions. The monitoring system developed in this study has the potential to significantly reduce the labor required for supplementary planting by enabling the real-time identification of locations where seeds were not sown during pot-seeding operations.