Autonomous Greenhouse Mobile Robot Driving Strategies From System Integration Perspective: Review and Application

Agricultural operations are constantly becoming technology-driven mainly due to labor shortages, increase in labor cost, and trends in new and advanced technology applications. In this paper, we have presented a system-of-systems approach to design and development of a mobile robotic platform for agricultural applications. Similar to other field robots, the mobile platform for agricultural applications requires a different set of predefined attributes for its operation. We have designed, fabricated, and demonstrated the mobile platform for pesticide spraying application. The design and development includes synergistic integration of mechanical, sensor and actuator, navigational and control, and electronic and software interfacings. The autonomous navigation aspect of the development was achieved via three stages: learning stage, implementation stage (training stage), and testing stage. In the learning stage, we defined the path patterns and studied and recorded the behavior of the vehicle in real-world environment. In the training stage, various steering algorithms for four-wheel driving system were developed and inherent errors were compensated using advanced tools and methods. In the testing stage, we put the robotic platform on an arbitrary path pattern and demonstrated its success in autonomous navigation. The medium-sized mobile robot can be commercialized for greenhouse-based agricultural operations.