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In this study, a comprehensive overview of the available autonomous ground platforms developed by universities and research groups that were specifically designed to handle agricultural tasks was performed. As cost reduction and safety improvements are two of the most critical aspects for farmers, the development of autonomous vehicles can be of major interest, especially for those applications that are lacking in terms of mechanization improvements. This review aimed to provide a literature evaluation of present and historical research contributions toward designing and prototyping agricultural ground unmanned vehicles. The review was motivated by the intent to disseminate to the scientific community the main features of the autonomous tractor named BOPS-1960, which was conceived in the 1960s at the Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna (UNIBO). Jointly, the main characteristics of the modern DEDALO unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) for orchard and vineyard operations that was designed recently were evaluated. The basic principles, technology and sensors used in the two UNIBO prototypes are described in detail, together with an analysis of UGVs for agriculture conceived in recent years by research centers all around the world.

We present an autonomous ground robotic platform for agriculture application. The design is specifically targeted for small/medium farms with orchards and in this paper we propose a new vehicle concept as well as the sensor suite and software architecture to accomplish the implementation of the navigation algorithm designed to autonomously operate within the rows of an orchard. In this context, we also show how to exploit the structure of the orchard to optimize the Hough Transform algorithm to detect tree rows. Simulations and experimental results are presented.

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