The AgriRover: A Space Robotics Inspired Mechatronic Platform Technology for Precision Farming

ThisMechatronic paper reports on the findings of AgriRover project, which is the first of its kind in exploiting and applying space robotic technologies in precision farming. A novel mobile platform inspired by space robotics is presented and its unique features for farming applications are highlighted. To measure energy performance of mobile platform, a new dynamic total cost of transport is proposed and validated. An autonomous navigationNavigation \b system based on a rover control architecture has been developed to enable the AgriRover to traverse in unstructured farming environments. A novel and agriculture- specific object recognition algorithm has been investigated and implemented to enable higher degree of intelligence. A novel soil sample collecting mechanism has been designed and prototyped for on-board and in-situ soil quality measurement. A three-level task planningPlanning \b module has been developed, providing a user friendly interface to simultaneously define high level soil sampling tasks and to perform sophisticated autonomous and dynamic task planningPlanning \b based on the field terrain information. The design of the whole system has benefited from the use of a mechatronicMechatronic design process known as the Tiv model. The AgriRover system has gone through three field trials in the UK and their results are reported.