Apple Size Estimation and Localization in Precision Agriculture

During my Master thesis at Aurea Imaging and the University of Twente, I worked on extending the TreeScout platform for apple size estimation and geo-localization. TreeScout is a tractor-mounted system with stereo cameras, IMU and RTK-GNSS, used to collect orchard data for tree-specific precision farming. My goal was to use this existing system in a new way: to estimate the size of apples and connect each apple to the correct tree. I found this very interesting because it was not only a computer vision problem. It was a complete system problem.

I had to plan the work around the apple season, where the timing of data collection was important. I designed the field trials at Randwijk, selected trees with different fruit density and vigor, and collected ground-truth measurements along with sensor data. After the first trial, I saw that some tagged apples were not visible or could not be detected, and so I changed the approach to tree-level data collection.

I then worked on developing a pipeline to detect, segment, track, size and localize apples in the orchard. I worked on the different parts in parallel to identify missing data early and complete data collection on time. After that, I conducted multiple trials using different methods along the pipeline. This project helped me learn how to translate field constraints into system choices and build a practical baseline for precision farming.