KOBRA
Crop monitoring that does not depend on who walked the crop
KOBRA is a camera-based monitoring system that records crops continuously and measures them with computer vision, building a consistent visual and numerical record over time.
The problem
Crops change continuously. Assessment usually does not.
A crop develops every day, but most assessment happens when someone has time to look at it. What gets recorded depends on who walked the crop, which part they looked at, and what they thought was worth writing down.
The result is a record with gaps and inconsistencies — enough to manage a crop day to day, but hard to compare between batches, treatments or seasons, and hard to use as evidence for a decision.
KOBRA addresses that by fixing the viewpoint, automating the capture and measuring the images rather than relying on recollection. What was previously an occasional observation becomes a continuous record.
What it does
From images to measurements
KOBRA combines imaging hardware with computer vision. The imaging makes the record consistent; the vision work turns that record into numbers.
- Fixed high-resolution imaging
- Cameras mounted in a fixed position so every image is taken from the same viewpoint, which is what makes images comparable across days and weeks.
- Automated capture
- Images are captured consistently on a schedule rather than depending on manual crop walks.
- Crop and seedling analysis
- Computer vision applied to the captured images to measure the crop rather than describe it — extracting quantities from what the camera sees.
- Germination and establishment
- Measurement of how a batch comes up and establishes, across the area the cameras cover rather than a hand-sampled patch.
- Time-lapse
- Continuous visual records that make gradual change visible, including change too slow to notice between crop walks.
- Longitudinal datasets
- Measurements accumulate over the life of the crop, so batches, treatments and seasons can be compared on the same basis.
Who it is for
Growers, nurseries and research
Growers
A consistent record of how the crop developed, to support decisions during the season and review after it.
Nurseries
Measurement of germination, establishment and uniformity across batches of young plant material.
Research
Longitudinal, comparable data across treatments, captured on a fixed schedule rather than by manual assessment.
KOBRA is an active development project. This page describes what the system is built to do; what a given deployment actually covers depends on the crop, the site and the camera setup, and is agreed case by case.
Contact
Pilots, research and commercial applications
Tell us the crop, the setting and what you would want to measure.