Adaptive Ultrasound-Based Tractor Localization for Semi-Autonomous Vineyard Operations

Corno, Matteo and Furioli, Sara and Cesana, Paolo and Savaresi, Sergio M. (2021) Adaptive Ultrasound-Based Tractor Localization for Semi-Autonomous Vineyard Operations. Agronomy, 11 (2). p. 287. ISSN 2073-4395

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Abstract

Autonomous driving is greatly impacting intensive and precise agriculture. Matter-of-factly, the first commercial applications of autonomous driving were in autonomous navigation of agricultural tractors in open fields. As the technology improves, the possibility of using autonomous or semi-autonomous tractors in orchards and vineyards is becoming commercially profitable. These scenarios offer more challenges as the vehicle needs to position itself with respect to a more cluttered environment. This paper presents an adaptive localization system for (semi-) autonomous navigation of agricultural tractors in vineyards that is based on ultrasonic automotive sensors. The system estimates the distance from the left vineyard row and the incidence angle. The paper shows that a single tuning of the localization algorithm does not provide robust performance in all vegetation scenarios. We solve this issue by implementing an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and by introducing an adaptive data selection stage that automatically adapts to the vegetation conditions and discards invalid measurements. An extensive experimental campaign validates the main features of the localization algorithm. In particular, we show that the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of the distance is 16 cm, while the angular RMSE is 2.6 degrees.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: Open Asian Library > Agricultural and Food Science
Depositing User: Unnamed user with email support@openasianlibrary.com
Date Deposited: 25 Jan 2023 10:04
Last Modified: 16 Oct 2024 04:38
URI: http://publications.eprintglobalarchived.com/id/eprint/164

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