Estimation of the Energy Consumption of an All-Terrain Mobile Manipulator for Operations in Steep Vineyards

Abstract

A heterogeneous robotic system that can perform various tasks in the steep vineyards of the Mediterranean region was developed and tested as part of the HEKTOR—Heterogeneous Autonomous Robotic System in Viticulture and Mariculture—project. This article describes the design of hardware and an easy-to-use method for evaluating the energy consumption of the system, as well as, indirectly, its deployment readiness level. The heterogeneous robotic system itself consisted of a flying robot—a light autonomous aerial robot (LAAR)—and a ground robot—an all-terrain mobile manipulator (ATMM), composed of an all-terrain mobile robot (ATMR) platform and a seven-degree-of-freedom (DoF) torque-controlled robotic arm. A formal approach to describe the topology and parameters of selected vineyards is presented. It is shown how Google Earth data can be used to make an initial estimation of energy consumption for a selected vineyard. On this basis, estimates of energy consumption were made for the tasks of protective spraying and bud rubbing. The experiments were conducted in two different vineyards, one with a moderate slope and the other with a much steeper slope, to evaluate the proposed estimation method.

Heterogeneous Autonomous Robotic System in Viticulture and Mariculture: Vehicles Development and Systems Integration

“…DEM can then be used as a basemap for planning LAAR flight missions, where the LAAR can maintain a constant altitude with respect to the terrain and not just the launch point. Such a description of the vineyard and the collected input data led to a methodology that allows the estimation of energy consumption before the pure deployment of the described robotic system [20].…”

The Influence of the Operator’s Perception on the Energy Demand for a Hydraulic Manipulator with a Large Working Area

“…In ref. [29], an attempt was made to determine the energy demand for a mobile manipulator when working on vineyards. Additionally, there are many works describing the effectiveness of energy recovery during movements with negative loads [30][31][32].…”