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ARS Home » Plains Area » Lubbock, Texas » Cropping Systems Research Laboratory » Cotton Production and Processing Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #406655
Research Project: Enhancing the Profitability and Sustainability of Upland Cotton, Cottonseed, and Agricultural Byproducts through Improvements in Pre-Ginning, Ginning, and Post-Ginning Processes

Location: Cotton Production and Processing Research

Title: Cotton gin stand machine-vision inspection and removal system for plastic contamination: hand intrusion sensor design

Author
item Pelletier, Mathew
item Wanjura, John
item Wakefield, Jonathan
item Holt, Gregory
item KOTHARI, NEHA - Cotton, Inc

Submitted to: AgriEngineering
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/11/2023
Publication Date: 12/22/2023
Citation: Pelletier, M.G., Wanjura, J.D., Wakefield, J.R., Holt, G.A., Kothari, N. 2023. Cotton gin stand machine-vision inspection and removal system for plastic contamination: hand intrusion sensor design. AgriEngineering. 6(1). https://doi.org/10.3390/agriengineering6010001.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/agriengineering6010001

Interpretive Summary: The U.S. cotton industry is highly concerned with removing plastic contamination from cotton lint. A major source of this contamination is the plastic used to wrap cotton modules produced by John Deere round module harvesters. A machine-vision detection and removal system has been developed to address this problem, using low-cost color cameras to detect plastic in the cotton stream and remove it. However, the system requires a lot of calibration and is difficult for cotton gin workers to operate due to its reliance on low-cost ARM computers running Linux. This research aims to make the system more user-friendly by adding an auto-calibration feature that can track cotton colors and avoid plastic images, reducing the need for skilled personnel to operate the system and making it easier for the cotton ginning industry to adopt.

Technical Abstract: The U.S. cotton industry has a big problem with plastic contamination. One main source of this contamination is plastic wrap used by cotton harvesters. Even though workers try their best to remove all the plastic, some still ends up in the cotton processing machines. To solve this issue, a system was developed that uses inexpensive cameras to spot the plastic and then remove it from the cotton. However, this system can be difficult to set up and use because it involves a network of 30-50 computers running a complex operating system. This research aims to make the system easier to use by adding an automatic calibration feature. This feature would adjust the system on its own, tracking the color of the cotton and ignoring the plastic. A key part of this feature is something called the "hand-intrusion-detector," or "HID," which is the focus of this paper. With this automatic calibration feature, setting up and maintaining the system should be much easier. This would mean you wouldn't need specially trained people to operate it. The goal is that this would make the system more appealing to the cotton industry and help reduce plastic contamination in cotton.