Evaluation of a UWB Radar System for Yield Mapping of Sugar Beet

摘要

The objective of this research was to develop a non-invasive yield mapping system for sugar beets by applying ultra wideband (UWB) radar technology. Similar to radars used in geological engineering, these devices acquire data via electromagnetic waves. The basic idea was to use such data to identify sugar beets in agricultural soils. The initial research task was to distinguish sugar beets from the surrounding soil. Within the first phase of the project, laboratory experiments have been used to testand improve data acquisition and processing procedures. In this phase the feasibility of detecting sugar beets in soil in laboratory conditions with a simple threshold approach on the reflected energy was confirmed. In the second phase the detectabilityand size estimation potential of sugar beets based on distribution and consistency of backscattered energy amounts obtained in field conditions has been researched. This paper is the final report on project and it contains the evaluation of the potentialof UWB radar system for yield mapping of sugar beet made on the basis of field measurements. The sugar beet detectability and mass determination potentials in field conditions have been evaluated. The simple threshold detection approach on the reflectedenergy showed insufficient flexibility on the data recorded in field conditions. Visual detectability on the same data for all scanned sugar beet rows was from 90% to 96% with good correlations between sugar beet positions and energy peak positions. Thebest correlations between mass of sugar beets and the amounts of backscattered energy were over 80%.