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Article

Bulk Tea Shoot Detection and Profiling Method for Tea Plucking Machines Using an RGB-D Camera

1
School of Mechanical Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China
2
School of Mechanical Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
3
Yibin Institute of Industrial Technology, Sichuan University Yibin Park, Yibin 643000, China
4
Key Laboratory of Agricultural Equipment Technology for Hilly and Mountainous Areas, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Chengdu 610066, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sensors 2025, 25(23), 7204; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25237204
Submission received: 14 October 2025 / Revised: 11 November 2025 / Accepted: 20 November 2025 / Published: 25 November 2025
(This article belongs to the Section Smart Agriculture)

Abstract

Due to the shortage of rural labor and an increasingly aging population, promoting the mechanized plucking of bulk tea and improving plucking efficiency have become urgent problems for tea plantations. Previous bulk tea plucking machines have not fully adapted to tea plantations in hilly areas, necessitating enhancements in the performance of cutter profiling. In this paper, we present an automatic cutter profiling method based on an RGB-D camera, which utilizes the depth information of bulk tea shoots to tackle the issues mentioned above. Specifically, we use improved super-green features and the Otsu method to detect and segment the shoots from the RGB images of the tea canopy taken from different lighting conditions. Furthermore, the cutting pose based on the depth value of the tea shoots can be generated as a basis for cutter profiling. Lastly, the profiling task is completed by the upper computer controlling motors to adjust the cutter pose. Field tests were conducted in the tea plantation to verify the proposed profiling method’s effectiveness. The average bud and leaf integrity rate, leakage rate, loss rate, tea making rate, and qualified rate were 81.2%, 0.91%, 0.66%, and 90.4%, respectively. The results show that the developed algorithm can improve cutting pose calculation accuracy and that the harvested bulk tea shoots meet the requirements of machine plucking quality standards and the subsequent processing process.
Keywords: bulk tea plucking; agricultural machinery; profiling; RGB-D camera; super-green feature bulk tea plucking; agricultural machinery; profiling; RGB-D camera; super-green feature

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Cai, Y.; Li, X.; Yi, W.; Liu, G. Bulk Tea Shoot Detection and Profiling Method for Tea Plucking Machines Using an RGB-D Camera. Sensors 2025, 25, 7204. https://doi.org/10.3390/s25237204

AMA Style

Cai Y, Li X, Yi W, Liu G. Bulk Tea Shoot Detection and Profiling Method for Tea Plucking Machines Using an RGB-D Camera. Sensors. 2025; 25(23):7204. https://doi.org/10.3390/s25237204

Chicago/Turabian Style

Cai, Yuyang, Xurui Li, Wenyu Yi, and Guangshuai Liu. 2025. "Bulk Tea Shoot Detection and Profiling Method for Tea Plucking Machines Using an RGB-D Camera" Sensors 25, no. 23: 7204. https://doi.org/10.3390/s25237204

APA Style

Cai, Y., Li, X., Yi, W., & Liu, G. (2025). Bulk Tea Shoot Detection and Profiling Method for Tea Plucking Machines Using an RGB-D Camera. Sensors, 25(23), 7204. https://doi.org/10.3390/s25237204

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