Development of the Transportation Vehicle with a Moving Workbench for Orchard on Sloping Land

Abstract

The agricultural workforce in Japan has been continuously decreased since 1950, and the aging of the agricultural workforce is getting serious. Hence, the development of burden reduction technology in the agricultural field has become a very important task in order to maintain agricultural production. In this study, we aim to develop an autonomous carrying vehicle to realize the carrying of harvest without workers. This vehicle is intended for use in sloping orchards and realizes autonomous carrying with AR markers and two-dimensional LRF. Also, an obstacle avoidance function and an operating status notification function are installed. As a result of the verification experiment using the vehicle, we confirmed that unmanned carrying could be realized. The effectiveness of the obstacle avoidance function and the operating status notification function is also confirmed. This vehicle can be used not only for transporting harvested products but also for orchard monitoring and pesticide spraying. Therefore, further efficiency of agricultural work can be expected.