Automatic guidance of agricultural vehicles using a laser sensor

This paper presents a method of automatic guidance of an agricultural vehicle in a structured environment (windrow harvester) or an iterative structured environment (combine harvester) using a laser sensor. The sensor parameters are estimated using a correlation based approach. A filter is incorporated so as to limit the perturbations caused by dust. The robustness of the guidance system can be increased by computing a reliability criterion from the estimate model. Vegetation volume and height are calculated and can be applied to control the vehicle velocity. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.