Towards Automated Under-Canopy Exploration of Plantation Forests

This paper investigates a novel approach for under-canopy exploration of plantation forests by exploiting the semi-structured nature of typical plantation forests by using tree stems as navigation cues within the environment. A simulation-based study is completed with the proposed method compared to the nearest frontier exploration method to determine relative performance using distance traveled as a surrogate for time. Results show our proposed method could explore an equivalent area with a shorter and more consistent travel distance across multiple runs. Testing also suggests further improvements to the strategy are possible within a plantation with culled stems.