Journal
ROBOTICS AND AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS
Volume 76, Issue -, Pages 36-45Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.robot.2015.11.009
Keywords
Area coverage planning; Coverage efficiency; Side-to-side 3D coverage planning; Robotics; Optimization
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Automated path planning is an important tool for the automation and optimization of field operations. It can provide the waypoints required for guidance, navigation and control of agricultural robots and autonomous tractors throughout the execution of these field operations. Typical field operations are repetitively required nearly every cropping season and therefore it should be carried out in a manner that maximizes the yield and minimizes operational cost, time and environmental impact taking into account the topographic land features. Current 3D terrain field coverage path planning algorithms are simply 2D coverage path planning projected into 3D through field terrain represented by the field's Digital Elevation Model (DEM). When projecting 2D coverage plan into its 3D counterpart, the actual distance between adjacent paths on the topographic surface either increases or decreases, and consequently there might be skips or overlaps between adjacent paths on the slopes. In addition, when the machine rolls on slopes the effective width of the implement decreases by a similar amount to double this error and complicates the problem. Skips and overlaps can lead to an inefficient use of land and resources. In this paper, a numerical approach to estimate the total skip/overlap areas is developed and applied to determine the optimum driving angle that minimizes this impact. Also, a novel side-to-side 3D coverage path planning approach, which ensures zero skips/overlaps regardless of the topographical nature of the field terrain, is developed. The approaches developed in this paper are tested and validated using a hypothetical test field of a tailored terrain and a real experimental field of uneven terrain nature. The proposed approaches illustrated that a significant percentage of uncovered area could be saved if appropriate driving angle is chosen and if a side-to-side 3D coverage is used. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available