Path Tracking Control for Four-Wheel-Independent-Driven Agricultural High Clearance Sprayer with New Front-Rear-Dual-Steering-Axle

The development of intelligent agricultural machinery and equipment technology is highly valued in China. Unmanned driving technology is an important part of it. For the unmanned driving technology of agricultural vehicles, the flexibility of agricultural vehicles and the accuracy of path tracking must be ensured to reduce the damage to farmland. This paper proposes a new type of unmanned high clearance sprayer, which use the four-wheel independent driving (4WID) with front-rear dual steering axle as its drive chassis. This flexible steering structure can effectively reduce the turning radius and make the rutting marks of the front and rear wheels consistent, reducing the damage to seedlings. Based on the sprayer kinematics model, the target path and vehicle parameters are combined to build a preview model prediction path tracking controller. Finally, co-simulation in the ADAMS and MATLAB show that new structure high clearance sprayer can achieve high precision path tracking and the trajectories of the front and rear wheels are almost consistent.