Securing the Apple Supply Chain – Using Aerial Imagery for Apple Count and Sizing for Managing Production, Labour and Logistics

随着需求上升，供应链步履蹒跚，国际进口变得不确定，COVID 19给果园水果供应链带来了严重压力。这个季节的种植者预计会出现劳动力短缺，或者使用缺乏经验的当地劳动力，而水果现在变得越来越重要。种植者目前以耗时且不准确的方式手动收集有限的数据。为了确保英国的粮食安全，所有这些问题都必须通过更好的数据和对果园条件的更好了解来解决。该项目将建立在现有技术的基础上，开发一个系统，以高度的地理空间准确性提供果园水果的准确计数。种植者需要这些数据来管理他们的果园，规划劳动力储存和物流；并在整个供应链中管理供应，确保有足够的水果可用，并规划国际贸易。我们在肯特果园拥有现有的测量和数据系统，并将使用现有的技术来识别树木果园的花朵。所提出的方法在全球市场上是独一无二的--使用在果园上方收集的倾斜(侧面)图像和商用无人机来计数苹果并预测产量。肯特郡的几个种植者已经表示支持这个项目，我们获得了他们使用他们的数据集进行这个项目的许可。此外，种植者还提供了本季数千棵树的手工统计地面真实数据，以确保开发的系统的准确性。这一创新将帮助英国果树行业供应市场，并在COVID 19的破坏中蓬勃发展。它可以迅速提供一个易于实施的解决方案，以支持一个在英国至关重要的行业。这将缓解其受到COVID19病毒的压力，并改善英国的食品安全。继最初阶段取得巨大成功后，IUK已将该项目扩大到专注于尽快满足种植者对产品产量的需求。这包括为在海外推广该系统做准备和开发一个平台，与最终用户合作开发一个最适合他们与所提供数据进行交互的系统。关键词：水果计数、航空图像分析、树木水果生产、作物测绘、机器视觉、自动空中系统

COVID 19 has severely stressed orchard fruit supply chains as demand has risen, supply chains have faltered and international imports become uncertain. Growers this season are expecting labour shortfalls, or to use inexperienced local labour, and fruit is now of increasing importance. Growers currently manually collect limited data in a time consuming and inaccurate manner. To ensure food security in the UK, all of these issues must be addressed with better data and improved understanding of orchard conditions.This project, building on existing technology, will develop a system to provide accurate counts of the fruit in the orchard with a high degree of geospatial accuracy. This data is needed by growers to manage their orchards and to plan labour storage and logistics; and throughout the supply chain for managing supply, ensuring sufficient fruit is available and planning international trade. We have existing surveying and data systems operating in Kent orchards, and will be using existing techniques for identifying blossoms in tree fruit orchards. The approach proposed is unique in the global market -- using oblique (side on) imagery gathered above orchards with commercially available drones to count apples and forecast outputs.Several growers in Kent have expressed their support for this project, and we have permission from them use their datasets for this project. Moreover, growers have offered to provide thousands of trees' of hand counted ground truth data for this season to ensure the accuracy of the system developed. This innovation will help the UK tree fruit industry to supply the market and thrive in the disruption from COVID 19. It can rapidly provide a readily implementable solution to support an industry that is critical in the UK. This will mitigate the pressure it has been put under by the COVID 19 virus and improve food security in the UK.Following great success in the initial stages, this project has been extended by IUK to focus on meeting growers needs for the outputs of the product as quickly as possible. This includes preparing the system for roll out overseas and the development of a platform, working with end users to develop a system best suit for them to interact with the data provided. Keywords: Fruit counting, Aerial imagery analysis, tree fruit production, crop mapping, machine vision, automated aerial systems