Building unmanned plant factory with modular robotic manipulation and logistics systems

Abstract

For cutting-edge protected agriculture, it is a leading trend to build an unmanned plant factory that requires robotic machinery as basic autonomous production units. However, the scheduling and cooperation among agricultural machines are rarely investigated. This paper reports on a modular logistics system based on the motion decomposition, and the objective is to develop a fully interrelating intelligent agricultural production system. Firstly, an unmanned ground vehicle is developed for transferring the intelligent agricultural machines such as agricultural robots. In consideration of the complex terrain features, both automatic mode and manual mode are available. The multifunctional smart remote-control mode is designed for users to control the logistics system accurately and the application of tablet PC provides an excellent user experience. Secondly, a control and mechanical system is designed to dock and transfer a harvesting robot. The safety and reliability of this system are jointly ensured by its movement pattern, the design of guide rails on the slope, and the precise positioning. Taking the performance on the test field into consideration, because the performance showed efficiency and accuracy of the system, future plans are highlighted to indicate the technical trends of unmanned plant factory.