Methods and Applications of 3D Ground Crop Analysis Using LiDAR Technology: A Survey

MICHELETTO, MATIAS J.; CHESÑEVAR, CARLOS I.; SANTOS, RODRIGO

SENSORS

MOLECULAR DIVERSITY PRESERVATION INTERNATIONAL-MDPI

Año: 2023 vol. 23

1424-8220

Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology is positioning itself as one of the mosteffective non-destructivemethods to collect accurate information on ground crop fields, as the analysisof the three-dimensional models that can be generated with it allows for quickly measuring severalkey parameters (such as yield estimations, aboveground biomass, vegetation indexes estimation,perform plant phenotyping, and automatic control of agriculture robots or machinery, among others).In this survey, we systematically analyze 53 research papers published between 2005 and 2022 thatinvolve significant use of the LiDAR technology applied to the three-dimensional analysis of groundcrops. Different dimensions are identified for classifying the surveyed papers (including applicationareas, crop species under study, LiDAR scanner technologies, mounting platform technologies,and the use of additional instrumentation and software tools). From our survey, we draw relevantconclusions about the use of LiDAR technologies, such as identifying a hierarchy of different scanningplatforms and their frequency of use as well as establishing the trade-off between the economic costsof deploying LiDAR and the agronomically relevant information that effectively can be acquired.We also conclude that none of the approaches under analysis tackles the problem associated withworking with multiple species with the same setup and configuration, which shows the need forinstrument calibration and algorithmic fine tuning for an effective application of this technology.