Obstacle avoidance of agricultural unmanned vehicles : Online route planning on fields with row intercropping

Samenvatting

In this research we created an algorithm that can make decisions for an unmanned agricultural vehicle, working on an intercropped field, on how to continue when an obstacle is detected. The online route planning algorithm runs a cost calculation based on a 2-dimensional array representation of the field, robot and obstacle. This results in two trade-offs: one of crop cost versus operational and fuel costs, and one of calculation accuracy versus calculation time. Both trade-offs are shown with scenarios of a controlled setting with a limited size. Also experiments are done with a real life setting based on a field of the ‘Farm of the Future’.