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Story: Wide-angle, ultra-low-distortion lens brings innovation to next-generation agriculture.
Date : 2020/12/24
By : TOYOTEC Solution Sales
The new wide-angle lens unit developed by TOYOTEC
has the industry’s smallest distortion.
It provides accurate information over a wide area
to the system without image distortion correction.
Agritech (Smart Agriculture）and Remote Sensing
In agriculture, one of the ways to improve productivity is through the use of digital systems. Lately, this method is often treated as a theme of “agritech”, and it also occupies an important position in “smart agriculture” promoted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
The smart agriculture market is one of the growing industries in Japan, as many startups and venture companies are flocking to take part in this market.
Looking at the Japanese market alone, it is said that a new market of 100 to 200 billion yen will be created by 2030 (although forecasts vary widely).
One of the core technologies in this smart agriculture market is remote sensing technology. This technology is used to monitor the condition of crops growing on farmland in real time while using digital systems.
Currently, farmers use their experience, instincts, and a lot of field labor to grasp the growth status and take appropriate measures.
In this technology, it is necessary to conduct observations from a position that allows a bird’s-eye view of the cultivated land, and for this purpose, there are three important technologies: drone technology, sensor technology, and image processing technology.
Ultra-low-distortion Lens and Remote Sensing
The accuracy of the image data that can be acquired and the speed of acquisition are crucial in the remote sensing of cultivated land. The acquisition speed is the same as the size of the image that can be acquired at one time. This means that the requirements for the optical system are simply “the ability to acquire image data over a wide area at a wide angle” and “the ability to accurately capture the actual situation with little distortion in the image data”.
TOYOTEC’S RDL Lens meet the above two conditions and is accepted by smart agriculture players as an important elemental technology in remote sensing for agriculture.
Related Column
Effects of the RDL Lens and Our Future Vision
The RDL Lens has already been used by several smart agriculture start-ups, and they had given us positive feedbacks such as; “This is a lens unit that we have never seen before. have tried many lens units from many manufacturers, but this is the first lens unit that can get accurate data without distortion”.
The current RDL lens units are designed for professional use, and the number of pixels is set to HD resolution to ensure stable operation and data accuracy. However, with the advancement of technology in the field of smart agriculture, it will be possible to provide solutions for length measurement with stereo cameras and more detailed data analysis with higher resolution. TOYOTEC would like to contribute to the growth of agriculture together with ambitious companies in the agricultural field.