Generating autonomous behaviour for a crop inspection robot

Abstract

This paper presents the main characteristics of a robot whose aim is to perform field inspection using autonomous navigation. The solution developed for crop row tracking is shown, which is a fundamental behaviour for crop inspection. For this purpose, an image processing method is implemented to determine the vehicle’s relative position to the crop row in real time. This position is supplied to two fuzzy controllers, one for angular speed and the other for linear speed. To integrate crop row tracking and other skills that the robot needs, we propose generating the different behaviours of the robot using a network of nodes with different functions: perceptive nodes, cognitive nodes and actuator nodes. The actions of the robot emerge from this set of behaviours, depending on the goals and needs that must be met at each given moment in time.