This paper presents an inspection system integrated into an on-ground autonomous platform with range of approximately 80 km. The vehicle is prepared to autonomously cover a field following a predefined route plan. Two types of cameras were integrated in the platform. An RGB-D sensor and a reflex camera were placed in a fixture and connected to a high-performance computer. The heterogeneous information acquired from the RGB-D was later integrated to automatically generate 3D maps of the crops by using custom software developed in the authors’ previous work. The inspection system performance was tested in actual vineyards by conducting several samplings in 2016. Results show that the proposed technology is viable and can provide complementary information to other inspection alternatives.
