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 15:
16. A computer program product, comprising:
a non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-readable program instructions embodied thereon that when executed by a computer cause the computer to pollinate plants, the computer readable instructions comprising:
computer-readable program instructions to position an autonomous drone higher than a plant and in the general vicinity of the plant;
computer-readable program instructions to capture an image below the autonomous drone and including a top view of the plant;
computer-readable program instructions to process the image to differentiate between the plant and the ground below the plant with a 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;

computer-readable program instructions to determine a center of the plant based on the processed image;
computer-readable program instructions to position the autonomous drone above the plant and relative to the center of the plant; and
computer-readable program instructions to dispense pollen from the autonomous drone.