Leveraging ISOBUS TIM-Based Communication to Connect Smart Weeding Implements and Autonomous Robots

The proliferation of the requirements for the latest technologies, such as autonomous robots and implements used in the domain of viticulture, has raised concerns about the issue of compatibility and communication between such technologies. In addition to that, integrating standardized means for the information exchange, connectivity, and communication between the employed autonomous platforms and the implements increases (e.g., robots and implements, respectively) the complexity level of the mentioned issues. However, bringing up the ISO 11783 standard-based communication into the connection between the robot and the implement could be one of the potential solutions in this scenario. In this work, this is achieved by developing a middleware that integrated the ISO 11783 network into the communication between the weeding implement, the CEOL robot, and the decision-making system (Analytics). Besides that, a proprietary solution of ISOBUS TIM functionality based on requests from the weeding implement was proposed to feed the robot with the signals about stopping and changing the hitch position through bi-directional communication.