US-12617561-B2 - Robotic multicopter sampler for infield crop and soil health sensing and tissue sample collection

Abstract

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), such as a multicopter, can be equipped with unique tools for use in agricultural operations. For example, the tools can be acquisition tools that can acquire a physical sample from a growing plant, such as a crop. The tools could also acquire physical specimens from areas around the plants. In addition, the UAV could be equipped with sensors, such as imagery acquiring devices (e.g., cameras, LIDAR, time of flight sensors, etc.) to acquire even additional information. The tools can be equipped via movable arms and/or end effectors to be able to directly contact the plants and/or soil. The longevity of the flight time of the UAV can be improved by tethering, improved batteries, or other add-ons to be able to acquire more information.

Inventors

• Lie Tang
• Liang Dong

Assignees

• IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION, INC.

Dates

Publication Date

20260505

Application Date

20250430

Claims (20)

1. 1 . An unmanned aerial vehicle, comprising: a platform comprising a processor; a plurality of rotor units operatively connected to the platform; a movable control arm extending from the platform, the movable control arm comprising at least a physical specimen contacting tool, wherein the physical specimen contacting tool comprises a first inflatable air bag to contact a specimen and a second inflatable air bag comprising a sensor probe to contact the specimen with the probe; a ground penetrating and sample collecting system; and a self-leveling landing system.
2. 2 . The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 1 , wherein the movable control arm further comprises a non-physical sensor, and wherein the at least one physical specimen contacting tool comprises a sensor probe for plant chemical composition sensing.
3. 3 . The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 1 , wherein the at least one physical specimen contacting tool further comprises an end effector for collecting a portion of a plant.
4. 4 . The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 1 , wherein the at least one physical specimen contacting tool comprises a ground penetrating probe for sensing or collecting a portion of ground.
5. 5 . The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 1 , further comprising a non-physical sensor comprising one or more stereo cameras, one or more time-of-flight sensors, one or more 3D imagery sensors, or some combination thereof.
6. 6 . The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 1 , wherein the movable control arm comprises one or more articulated robot arms.
7. 7 . The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 1 , wherein the movable control arm comprises an end effector with the physical specimen contacting tool and a tray for receiving a sample collected by the ground penetrating and sample collecting system, the tray comprising a sensor.
8. 8 . The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 1 , wherein the self-leveling landing system comprises a plurality of telescoping legs to balance landing on uneven ground.
9. 9 . The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 1 , further comprising a GPS antenna.
10. 10 . The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 1 , further comprising a sensor cleaning solution container operatively connected to the platform to provide cleaning solution.
11. 11 . The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 1 , wherein the physical specimen contacting tool further comprises a pilot hole needle connected to the second inflatable air bag to create a hole in the specimen for the sensor probe.
12. 12 . A method for collecting both physical specimens and imagery information from plants and/or ground using a multicopter unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 1 , the method comprising: landing the multicopter unmanned aerial vehicle at or near the plants and ground using a landing system; physically contacting the ground or plants with an acquisition tool connected to the multicopter unmanned aerial vehicle via a movable control arm to collect a physical sample; collecting imagery information of the plants or ground with a sensor of the movable control arm; and georeferencing the physical sample and the imagery information with GPS.
13. 13 . The method of claim 12 , further comprising cleaning, conditioning, and/or reconditioning the sensor after collecting the imagery information.
14. 14 . The method of claim 12 , further comprising generating a prescription map for the application of particulate material based upon the collected physical and imagery information.
15. 15 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the step of physically contacting the ground or plants with an acquisition tool comprises touching, penetrating, or removing a portion of the ground or plants.
16. 16 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the step of landing the multicopter unmanned aerial vehicle comprises extending telescoping legs to self-level the multicopter unmanned aerial vehicle based on the elevation of the ground.
17. 17 . A system for collecting both physical specimens and imagery information from plants and/or ground to generate a prescription agricultural map, comprising: an unmanned aerial vehicle, comprising: a platform comprising a processor; a plurality of rotor units operatively connected to the platform; one or more movable control arms extending from the platform, the one or more movable control arms comprising at least a physical specimen acquisition tool and a non-physical sensor, wherein the physical specimen contacting tool comprises a first inflatable air bag to contact a specimen and a second inflatable air bag comprising a sensor probe to contact the specimen with the probe; and a self-leveling landing system; and computer readable medium including software to: analyze data acquired from the at least a physical specimen acquisition tool and a non- physical sensor; and generate a prescription map for the application of particulate material based upon the analyzed data.
18. 18 . The system of claim 17 , wherein the at least one physical specimen acquisition tool comprises a ground penetrating probe for sensing or collecting a portion of ground.
19. 19 . The system of claim 17 , further comprising a GPS antenna to georeferenced the data acquired from the at least a physical specimen acquisition tool and a non-physical sensor.
20. 20 . The system of claim 17 , wherein the self-leveling landing system comprises a plurality of telescoping legs to balance landing on uneven ground.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e) to provisional patent application U.S. Ser. No. 63/658,138, filed Jun. 10, 2024. The provisional patent application is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety herein, including without limitation: the specification, claims, and abstract, as well as any figures, tables, appendices, or drawings thereof. TECHNICAL FIELD The present disclosure relates generally to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). More particularly, but not exclusively, the disclosure relates to UAVs that are equipped with tools and/or sensors for use in the agricultural industry, such as by taking physical specimen collections and inspection, which can be used for plant health and soil nutritional status. BACKGROUND The background description provided herein gives context for the present disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art. In the U.S., over 349 million acres are planted for crops. In agriculture-intensive states, such as Iowa, around 90% of the land is used for farming. Thus, a robotic system with the purpose of assisting farmers to improve the efficiency and productivity of their production systems through conducting precision farming practices would be of a great value and interest to farmers. Precision farming relies on georeferenced crop performance information such as crop's nutritional status and stress factors like pests and diseases, and to that end, crop scouting with field crews has been an essential tool. In addition, plant tissue samples can be used to identify specific pathogens (or strains thereof) of pests and monitor their spread. This is particularly useful during outbreaks of crop diseases, as tissue samples can be screened by using high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies to genotype the associated pathogens. Given the high sensitivity of DNA sequencing, the presence of pathogens can often be identified prior to the onset of visible disease symptoms. However, manual scouting and tissue sample collection over large crop production fields are laborious and time-consuming. To address this, unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been used with agricultural operations. Such vehicles, including those found in FIGS. 1 and 2, have been developed for high-throughput field-based phenotyping with customized stereo cameras and bio-sensor deployment using its onboard robotic manipulator. Although such type of ground-based robot can be used to scout an entire production field, it would be a rather inefficient and impractical solution because most crops are planted in long rows, requiring a ground-based and row-following vehicle to transverse many long rows to sample plants that are scattered throughout a field. UAVs offer better efficiency in traversing across large crop fields to reach scattered sampling locations. Multicopters, e.g., quadcopters or hexacopters, as opposed to fixed-wing aerial vehicles, have been widely used in many applications, such as environment monitoring, communication, delivery service, etc., primarily due to their greater maneuverability, hovering capability, and low cost. However, existing multicopter platforms for large-scale crop sampling are subject to limited flight duration and poor stability under wind disturbances. Although new technologies for autonomous battery swapping have been developed to resume UAV flights, it cannot break the maximum duration barrier and limits the mobility of UAVs due to frequent recalls of battery swapping. For large-scale crop plant sampling over hundreds of acres (e.g., the average corn farm size at Iowa is 333 acres) with many monitoring sites, existing multicopter platforms often cannot meet the minimum duration requirement, not to mention carrying those power-demanding payload such as motors, powerful CPUs and GPUs, cameras, LiDAR, and sampling instruments. Attempts to extend a UAV's operational time have, in large part, focused on the selection of efficient components and the use of power-efficient path planning and control strategies, which can still be insufficient to meet the power requirement. Therefore, there exists a need for improved UAVs, such as a multicopter, that can be used to acquire samples and other information for large-scale crop fields, which include improved longevity (time of use) and also improved tools for collecting the samples. SUMMARY The following objects, features, advantages, aspects, and/or embodiments are not exhaustive and do not limit the overall disclosure. No single embodiment need provide each and every object, feature, or advantage. Any of the objects, features, advantages, aspects, and/or embodiments disclosed herein can be integrated with one another, either in full or in part. It is a primary object, feature, and/or ad