Development of the Autonomous Brush-cutting Robot using Articulated Steering Vehicle

This paper proposes a robotic brush-cutter that operates a retail-purchased brush-cutter. The robotic vehicle is constructed with a centre articulated body, a manipulating mechanism for the brush cutter, sensors and controller. Two Laser Imaging Detection and Rangings (LIDAR) and a GPS campus are installed to achieve continuous positioning. The authors proposed a lateral guided method SSM for the articulated vehicle and then applied it. The map for selflocalization is constructed with a 0.1m(exp 2), 2-D grid that is measured by the equipped 2-D LIDARs. The experimental set up was developed and installed in the control program and then autonomous mowing was tested, leading to the results of running and mowing. The proposed system can effectively mow without leaving a strip of unmowed grass by setting the overlap to 20 cm.