Mapping and Path Planning

Automation in orchards and vineyards is becoming a big notion and has gained considerable interest in recent years (Contente et al., 2015; Verbiest et al., 2021). Autonomous navigation is one of the fundamental components of agricultural automation (Hiremath et al., 2014), as it provides a well-defined path for agricultural machine mobility without damaging any field assets (Winterhalter et al., 2021). There are three primary tasks in autonomous navigation viz: localization, path planning, and motion control. Out of the three primary tasks, path planning is undeniably, one of the critical tasks in autonomous navigation (Sariff & Buniyamin, 2006). Prior knowledge of the working environment undoubtedly provides added information during planning a navigational activity for a vehicle in the agricultural domain (Contente et al., 2015). Therefore, we chose a known agricultural environment to perform path planning and navigation tasks.