Automatic Guidance System in Real-time Orchard Application (Part 2)

——Development of Low-cost and Small Scale Electronic Robot Vehicle for Orchard Application——

Abstract

The objective of the research was to develop a low-cost and small scale robot vehicle for an orchard application. The platform used was an electronic utility vehicle also called as E-GATOR. The electronic vehicle was modified into a robot vehicle that can control functions such as steering, movement (forward, backward, neutral), vehicle speed, and emergency stop (by manual and remote control). The robot vehicle was tested to run autonomously on a straight-line path using an RTK-GPS (real-time kinematic global positioning system) and an IMU (inertial measurement unit) as the navigation sensors. The results showed that the robot vehicle could follow the straight-line path with lateral and heading RMS errors of 0.08m and 1.2deg, respectively.