Blenheim – UCVision

Industry event for the Occlusion Project

On 14 February 2024 we held an event for the MBIE funded project, “Predicting the unseen: a new method for accurate yield estimation in viticulture/horticulture”, otherwise known as the Occlusion Project. The event was held at the NZ Wine Centre in Blenheim with talks on the project held in the theatre there and then a field trip to Constellation Vineyard to see our robot scanning the grapevines.

We had good industry engagement with lots of good discussion around what we are doing. The field trip was a great introduction to our robot ‘Matilda’ and camera bar. We hope to have this event yearly and invite more people next year as we build up a network of industry supporters.

Maaratech Update July 2023

In July 2023 we conducted our Maaratech field work in the Marlborough region.

Using our robot Genie, we scanned both sides of 110 plants in the Cloudy Bay vineyard.

The HDR capture coupled with the close alignment between each sides meant we got the best photos yet.

We also scan 1.5ha (approx. 3,000 vines) of vines at our secondary site:

In this vineyard we made use of the row following to achieve consistent distance from the vines.

We also tested our remote control of the vehicle. Here is a picture of Matt down the road having a coffee and monitoring the robot. The robot was autonomously scanning and no one was on site to monitor it.

Richie has now mounted all the camera’s on the adjustable camera bar onto Genie (see picture below). They still need some adjustment. Hopefully we will get to test this new set up in Lincoln in July.

Meet our Team – Matt Mattar

Matt Mattar has been on the UC Vision team for just over a year. We talked to him about what he does with programming robots for computer vision research which are used in vineyards. He talks about how he works on the front end of a database and doing the navigation stack for the robot. Fieldwork is a big part of the Maaratech project which he is working on. He describes what it is like out in the field.

Meet our Team – Niels van Antwerpen

Niels van Antwerpen did a 4th year project was to develop a detection and identification system. He trained an AI system to detect plants in a vineyard in order for the viticulturalist to go out into the vineyard and take photos and compare with photos in the past.

Niels has enjoyed Computer and software engineering at UC and working with the UC Vision team.

Watch the video of Niels talking about his time working with UC Vision.

Maaratech Fieldtrip to Blenheim 2022

The Maaratech Team, both the University of Canterbury and University of Auckland teams, met in Blenheim last week for field work. The fieldtrip is still running this week, and it is hoped that a lot of data and insights will be gained from this trip.

The Maaratech project aims to reduce the variability of human worker performance in orchards and vineyards, using augmented reality technology to help inexpert workers make expert decisions, and reduce the risk associated with a transient workforce, using robotic automation. We will create new technologies that capture and convert data about plant structure, and the activities of expert humans, into smart decisions and actions in fruit growing e.g which grape vine to prune and how much to remove.

Category: Blenheim

Industry event for the Occlusion Project

Maaratech Update July 2023

Meet our Team – Matt Mattar

Meet our Team – Niels van Antwerpen

Maaratech Fieldtrip to Blenheim 2022