Patent ID: 11957096
Assignee: ARIZONA BOARD OF REGENTS ON BEHALF OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
Field: Audio-visual technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC A  B  G  H | IPC A  B  G  H

Claim 9:
10. A method to position autonomous drones to dispense pollen to plants, comprising:
positioning an autonomous drone higher than a plant and in the general vicinity of the plant;
capturing an image below the autonomous drone and including a top view of the plant;
processing the image to differentiate between the plant and the ground below the plant with processor onboard the autonomous drone, wherein processing the image comprises:
converting the image to RGB format;
blurring the image with a low pixel brush;
creating a mask comprising the RGB values from dark to light green; and
applying the mask to obtain a binary black and white image;

determining a center of the plant based on the processed image;
positioning the autonomous drone above the plant and relative to the center of the plant; and
dispensing pollen from the autonomous drone.