Towards Digital Twin of Crops for Growth Modelling using Virtual Reality

Abstract

A major problem that a farmer faces, while adopting a new crop variety in the farm; is the uncertainty associated with its growth. Farmers working on real farms are not aware of the growth models, even for the existing crops. Hence, there is a need for more accessible and intuitive models. This work is a step towards the realization of another promising model, which is the digital twin of a crop. A primary requirement of the digital twin is the digital representation of the crop itself. Extending that notion, the work discusses the development of 3D assets of crops and their temporal alignment. It also describes the methodology involved in the development of a VR framework, which stores the ideal growth of a crop. This framework could be useful to farmers who want to confirm the growth of their crops. Furthermore, it also proposes a quantitative metric to evaluate the VR framework. The consistency of this proposed metric is further backed by a user study which is based on a qualitative method.