LiDAR–Camera Fusion for 3D Fruit Counting and Density Mapping in Horizontal Trellis Orchards

This study presents a real-time fruit monitoring system that integrates light detection and ranging (LiDAR) and RGB camera data for 3D fruit counting and spatial density mapping in horizontal trellis pear orchards. The system employs instance-level sensor fusion, combining YOLO-based 2D fruit detection with SLAM-generated 3D point clouds to localize and track individual fruits. A customized temporal tracking algorithm mitigates duplicate counts, while center-based spatial filtering improves detection accuracy. Among the four evaluated YOLO models, YOLOv11s was selected based on its F1-score, lowest false negatives (FN) count, and real-time performance. Field validation in a 6 m × 70 m orchard plot demonstrated high counting accuracy (96.2%) and reliable spatial density estimation, with a mean absolute error of 0.64 fruits/m 2 . The system effectively identified yield variations across different orchard regions. These findings support the use of LiDAR–camera fusion for scalable, high-precision fruit monitoring in orchard environments, particularly in labor-intensive horizontal trellis systems.