Rapid development methodology of agricultural robot navigation system working in GNSS-denied environment

  • Run-Mao Zhao ,
  • Zheng Zhu ,
  • Jian-Neng Chen ,
  • Tao-Jie Yu ,
  • Jun-Jie Ma ,
  • Guo-Shuai Fan ,
  • Min Wu ,
  • Pei-Chen Huang
Expand
  • 1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, 310018, People's Republic of China;
    2. Key Laboratory of Transplanting Equipment and Technology of Zhejiang, Province, Hangzhou, 310018, People's Republic of China;
    3. School of Transportation, Zhejiang Industry Polytechnic College, Shaoxing, 312000, Zhejiang, People's Republic of China;
    4. College of Automation, Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering, Guangzhou, 510225, People's Republic of China

Received date: 2022-07-31

  Revised date: 2022-09-25

  Online published: 2023-10-27

Supported by

This research is funded by the Agricultural Equipment Department of Jiangsu University (Grant No. NZXB20210106), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52105284), the Leading Goose Program of Zhejiang Province (Grant No. 2022C02052), the China Agriculture Research System of MOF and MARA and Basic, and the Applied Basic Research Project of Guangzhou Basic Research Program in 2022 (Grant No. 202201011691). We also thank the anonymous reviewers for their critical comments and suggestions for improving the manuscript.

Abstract

Robotic autonomous operating systems in global n40avigation satellite system (GNSS)-denied agricultural environments (green houses, feeding farms, and under canopy) have recently become a research hotspot. 3D light detection and ranging (LiDAR) locates the robot depending on environment and has become a popular perception sensor to navigate agricultural robots. A rapid development methodology of a 3D LiDAR-based navigation system for agricultural robots is proposed in this study, which includes: (i) individual plant clustering and its location estimation method (improved Euclidean clustering algorithm); (ii) robot path planning and tracking control method (Lyapunov direct method); (iii) construction of a robot-LiDAR-plant unified virtual simulation environment (combination use of Gazebo and SolidWorks); and (vi) evaluating the accuracy of the navigation system (triple evaluation: virtual simulation test, physical simulation test, and field test). Applying the proposed methodology, a navigation system for a grape field operation robot has been developed. The virtual simulation test, physical simulation test with GNSS as ground truth, and field test with path tracer showed that the robot could travel along the planned path quickly and smoothly. The maximum and mean absolute errors of path tracking are 2.72 cm, 1.02 cm; 3.12 cm, 1.31 cm, respectively, which meet the accuracy requirements of field operations, establishing the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. The proposed methodology has good scalability and can be implemented in a wide variety of field robot, which is promising to shorten the development cycle of agricultural robot navigation system working in GNSS-denied environment.

The full text can be downloaded at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40436-023-00438-0

Cite this article

Run-Mao Zhao , Zheng Zhu , Jian-Neng Chen , Tao-Jie Yu , Jun-Jie Ma , Guo-Shuai Fan , Min Wu , Pei-Chen Huang . Rapid development methodology of agricultural robot navigation system working in GNSS-denied environment[J]. Advances in Manufacturing, 2023 , 11(4) : 601 -617 . DOI: 10.1007/s40436-023-00438-0

References

1 Li SC, Zhang M, Ji YH et al (2021) Agricultural machinery GNSS/IMU-integrated navigation based on fuzzy adaptive finite impulse response Kalman filtering algorithm. Comput Electron Agr 191:106524. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.COMPAG.2021.106524
2 Zhao CH, Yang ZY, Cheng XR et al (2022) SINS/GNSS integrated navigation system based on maximum versoria filter. Chin J Aeronaut 35(8):168-178
3 Li ZK, Liu Z, Zhao L (2021) Improved robust Kalman filter for state model errors in GNSS-PPP/MEMS-IMU double state integrated navigation. Adv Space Res 67(10):3156-3168
4 Tang YN, Jiang JG, Liu JH et al (2022) A GRU and AKF-based hybrid algorithm for improving INS/GNSS navigation accuracy during GNSS outage. Remote Sen-Basel 14(3):752. https://doi.org/10.3390/RS14030752
5 Chen JQ, Qiang H, Wu JH et al (2021) Navigation path extraction for greenhouse cucumber-picking robots using the prediction-point Hough transform. Comput Electron Agr 180:105911. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2020.105911
6 Malavazi F, Guyonneau R, Fasquel JB et al (2018) LiDAR-only based navigation algorithm for an autonomous agricultural robot. Comput Electron Agr 154:71-79
7 Papadimitriou A, Mansouri SS, Nikolakopoulos G (2022) Range-aided ego-centric collaborative pose estimation for multiple robots. Expert Syst Appl 202:117052. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ESWA.2022.117052
8 Zhu DJ (2021) Research on localization algorithm of patrol robot based on fusion of vision and wheel encoder. Dissertation, University of Science and Technology of China
9 Long ZH, Xiang Y, Lei XM et al (2022) Integrated indoor positioning system of greenhouse robot based on UWB/IMU/ODOM/LIDAR. Sensors 22(13):4819. https://doi.org/10.3390/s22134819
10 Wężyk P, Hawryło P, Szostak M et al (2019) Using LiDAR point clouds in determination of the scots pine stands spatial structure meaning in the conservation of lichen communities in “Bory Tucholskie” national park. Archives of Photogrammetry, Cartography and Remote Sensing 31:85-103
11 Zhang MN, Lv XL, Qiu W et al (2017) Calculation method of leaf area density based on three-dimensional laser point cloud. Trans Chin Soc Agricultural Mach 48(11):172-178
12 Shendryk Y, Sofonia J, Garrard R et al (2020) Fine-scale prediction of biomass and leaf nitrogen content in sugarcane using UAV LiDAR and multispectral imaging. Int J Appl Earth Obs 92:102177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2020.102177
13 Blanquart JE, Sirignano E, Lenaerts B et al (2020) Online crop height and density estimation in grain fields using LiDAR. Biosys Eng 198:1-14
14 Karimi HR, Liang B, Basin M et al (2021) EKF-DRNN autopilot for VLCC heading hybrid control. T I Meas Control 43(13):2983-2999
15 Dai XH, Ke CX, Quan Q et al (2021) RFlySim: automatic test platform for UAV autopilot systems with FPGA-based hardware-in-the-loop simulations. Aerosp Sci Technol 114:106727. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.AST.2021.106727
16 Carvalho EA, Magalhães RR, Santos FL (2016) Geometric modeling of a coffee plant for displacements prediction. Comput Electron Agr 123:57-63
17 Zhang XB, Zhu YH, Su YL et al (2021) Quantitative extraction and analysis of pear fruit spot phenotypes based on image recognition. Comput Electron Agr 190:106474. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.COMPAG.2021.106474
18 Jiang SF, Wang KQ, Zhou ZY (2021) Experimental study on the complementary inverse reconstruction of tree growth state data by radar detection and 3D raster scan. Ferroelectrics 578(1):51-65
19 Cheraïet A, Naud O, Carra M et al (2020) An algorithm to automate the filtering and classifying of 2D LiDAR data for site-specific estimations of canopy height and width in vineyards. Biosys Eng 200:450-465
20 Chen RQ, Li CC, Yang GJ et al (2020) Extraction of crown information from individual fruit tree by UAV LiDAR. Trans Chin Soc Agricultural Eng 36(22):50-59
21 Jones MH, Bell J, Dredge D et al (2019) Design and testing of a heavy-duty platform for autonomous navigation in kiwifruit orchards. Biosys Eng 187:129-146
22 Jiang SK, Wang SL, Yi ZY et al (2022) Autonomous navigation system of greenhouse mobile robot based on 3D Lidar and 2D Lidar SLAM. Front Plant Sci 13:815218. https://doi.org/10.3389/FPLS.2022.815218
23 Liu SQ (2022) Research on autonomous mapping and navigation technology of tracked robot in unknown environment based on ROS. Dissertation, Shandong University
Outlines

/