Positioning of an Autonomous Farm Vehicle for Conducting Shaft Tillage Cultivation

Abstract

We describe a solar-powered robotic farming system. A high-precision localization system with a laser distance sensor for guidance of a working vehicle was studied in the field. In addition, we attempted to develop a shaft-tillage and transplanting attachment based on our findings on robot-oriented farming. Here we report the findings of a vehicle positioning experiment in which the vehicle was instructed to undertake repeated stop-and-go driving and execute tillage and transplanting operations while the vehicle was stopped. The root mean square of the positioning error was approximately 13mm and was due to a measurement error of the developed localization system. Factoring in the decrease in measurement accuracy will result in an ideal positioning accuracy of less than 10mm.