| Resumo: | The sustained growth of the world’s population in the coming years will require an even greater role for agriculture to meet the food needs of humankind. To improve the productivity and competitiveness of the agricultural industry, it is necessary to develop new and affordable sensing technologies for agricultural operations. This kind of innovations should be implemented in a framework considering the farm, the crops, and their surroundings, with the aim of providing the farmer with information to take better decisions to enhance the production. This is the case of precision agriculture and precision livestock farming. This chapter reviews and discusses the use of structured light sensors in the characterization and phenotyping of crops in orchards and groves, weeds, and animals. As a result of a collaboration between researchers from Spain and Chile, opportunities for this type of sensors have been identified in these countries as examples of South American and European agriculture. In this context, several empirical case studies are presented regarding the use of structured light sensors for flower, fruit, branch, and trunk characterization considering depth and RGB (red-green-blue colors) information in avocados, lemons, apple, and pear orchards. Applications to weed detection and classification as well as to livestock phenotyping are also illustrated. Regarding the presented case studies, experimental and statistical results are provided showing the pros and cons of structured light sensors applied to agricultural environments. Additionally, several considerations are included for the use of this type of sensors to improve the agricultural process
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