An approach for monitoring temperature on fruit surface by means of thermal point cloud.

Heat and excessive solar radiation can produce abiotic stresses during apple maturation, resulting fruit quality. Therefore, the monitoring of temperature on fruit surface (FST) over the growing period can allow to identify thresholds, above of which several physiological disorders such as sunburn may occur in apple. The current approaches neglect spatial variation of FST and have reduced repeatability, resulting in unreliable predictions. In this study, LiDAR laser scanning and thermal imaging were employed to detect the temperature on fruit surface by means of 3D point cloud. A process for calibrating the two sensors based on an active board target and producing a 3D thermal point cloud was suggested. After calibration, the sensor system was utilised to scan the fruit trees, while temperature values assigned in the corresponding 3D point cloud were based on the extrinsic calibration. Whereas a fruit detection algorithm was performed to segment the FST from each apple.•The approach allows the calibration of LiDAR laser scanner with thermal camera in order to produce a 3D thermal point cloud.•The method can be applied in apple trees for segmenting FST in 3D. Whereas the approach can be utilised to predict several physiological disorders including sunburn on fruit surface.