Image-based Control of a UGV in an Orchard using a Central Catadioptric Camera

Abstract

Recently the necessity of autonomous or highly functional agricultural equipments is increasing because of decrease and aging of labors for farming. The development of autonomous vehicles in an orchard is required as one of the equipments because an orchard is usually on a hill or mountain where it is very tough for farmers to work. In this research, a new design method of an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) in an orchard is proposed by using image-based control with a central catadioptric camera. A central catadioptric camera is very effective to keep target objects in the camera field of view because of its wide area view. The effectiveness of our proposed method is confirmed by experimental results in an orchard.

Modeling of Vehicle based on Visual Feedback Control by Closed-loop Identification

“…，農業用ロボットなどの移動体制御ではカメ ラを利用した自動運転制御が研究されている (12) 。このよう なカメラを制御ループに含める制御手法はビジュアルフィー c 2014 The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.…”