Franco Gasparini

Application of the Kinect sensor for dynamic soil surface characterization

Agricultural soil roughness is pertinent to important agricultural phenomena, such as evaporation, infiltration or compression. Monitoring roughness variations would make possible the improvement of tillage operations. In the present work, implementation of the Microsoft Kinect™ RGB-depth camera for dynamic characterization of soil micro-relief is proposed and discussed. The metrological performance and the effect of the operating conditions on three-dimensional reconstruction was analyzed considering both laboratory tests on calibrated reference surfaces and field tests on different agricultural soil surfaces. Data set analysis was made on the basis of surface roughness parameters, as defined by ISO 25178 (2012) series: average roughness, root mean square roughness, skewness and kurtosis. Correlation between different tillage conditions and roughness parameters describing soil morphology was finally discussed.

Three-dimensional sensor for dynamic characterization of soil microrelief

The paper discusses possibilities and limitation of a sensor for dynamic characterization of soil microrelief, analyzing the metrological performance and the effect of the operating conditions on three-dimensional reconstuction. Data sets analysis is made on the basis of surface roughness parameters, as defined by ISO 25178 series. The paper demonstrates how proper calibration and instrument set-up procedures can improve the resolution down to millimeter level, even on relatively large areas. Practical application examples are reported with the result of measurements on soil after operations with different agricultural machines.