Passive suspension rover for minimally invasive monitoring of agricultural areas

• Grant number: 16/09970-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Effective date (Start): August 01, 2016
• Effective date (End): November 23, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Agricultural Engineering - Agricultural Machinery and Implements
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Becker
• Grantee: Vitor Akihiro Hisano Higuti
• Host Institution: Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos (EESC). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 17/00033-7 - LiDAR-based navigation system for ground autonomous mobile robot in corn field, BE.EP.MS

Abstract

Environmental, economical, populational and technological factors have been forming a propitious conjuncture to rising investments in research and development applied to agricultural area. The field is not anymore a space limited to rustic and manual techniques, but rather a true laboratory in which last century technologies, as robotics, have been applied. Already tested and consolidated in other industrial and academic areas, robotic theories have been showing promising results when applied to agricultural field. Nevertheless, it still demands great advances to guarantee robustness and safety in a workspace quite susceptible to changes, either done by nature itself or by action of agricultural machines used in multiple stages of the farming process. In this context, since 2010, Mobile Robotics Laboratory (LabRoM) of School of Engineering of São Carlos (EESC-USP) has been developing mobile robotics projects, either terrestrial or aerial, to act in agricultural field. Thus, giving sequence to works developed in this line of research by the candidate, while in internship in Embrapa Instrumentation/LabRoM, and by other members of the laboratory, this project has the ultimate goal of achieving capability of autonomous navigation for a robotics platform in agricultural field using two strategies in harmony: global navigation with GPS receiver and reactive local navigation with a LiDAR rangefinder sensor. While Dijkstra algorithm is used to supply the minimal path between interest points to be reached in the field, perception algorithms with LiDAR provides instantaneous knowledge of robot's surroundings, in such a way that it will have enough information to always travel without damaging the crop. For this purpose, cooperates with Embrapa in the following approved projects: CNPq 482679/2013-1, CNPq 403405/2013-0 and CNPq 479994/2013-7. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

GASPARINO, MATEUS V.; HIGUTI, VITOR A. H.; VELASQUEZ, ANDRES E. B.; BECKER, MARCELO. Improved localization in a corn crop row using a rotated laser rangefinder for three-dimensional data acquisition. Journal of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering, v. 42, n. 11, OCT 21 2020. (16/09970-0, 17/10401-3)

VELASQUEZ, A. E. B.; HIGUTI, V. A. H.; GUERRERO, H. B.; GASPARINO, M. V.; MAGALHAES, D. V.; AROCA, R. V.; BECKER, M.. Reactive navigation system based on H infinity control system and LiDAR readings on corn crops. PRECISION AGRICULTURE, v. 21, n. 2, p. 349-368, APR 2020. (13/07276-1, 17/10401-3, 16/09970-0)