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Complete Coverage Path Planning for wheeled agricultural robots
  • Danial PourArab,
  • Matthias Spisser,
  • Caroline Essert
Danial PourArab
Laboratoire des Sciences de l'Ingenieur de l'Informatique et de l'Imagerie

Corresponding Author:pourarab@etu.unistra.fr

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Matthias Spisser
T&S - Technology and Strategy Strasbourg
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Caroline Essert
Laboratoire des Sciences de l'Ingenieur de l'Informatique et de l'Imagerie
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Abstract

In the agricultural industry, an evolutionary effort has been made over the last two decades to achieve precise autonomous systems to perform typical in-field tasks including harvesting, mowing, and spraying. One of the main objectives of an autonomous system in agriculture is to improve the efficiency while reducing the environmental impact and cost. Due to the nature of these operations, complete coverage path planning approaches play an essential role to find an optimal path which covers the entire field while taking into account land topography, operation requirements and robot characteristics. The aim of this paper is to propose a complete coverage path planning approach defining the optimal movements of mobile robots over an agricultural field. First, a method based on tree exploration is proposed to find all potential solutions satisfying some predefined constraints. Second, a Similarity check and selection of optimal solutions method is proposed to eliminate similar solutions and find the best solutions. The optimization goals are to maximize the coverage area and to minimize overlaps, non-working path length and overall travel time. In order to explore a wide range of possible solutions, our approach is able to consider multiple entrances for the robot. For fields with a complex shape, different dividing lines to split it into simple polygons are also considered. Our approach also computes the headland zones and covers them automatically which leads to a high coverage rate of the field.
17 Nov 2022Submitted to Journal of Field Robotics
17 Nov 2022Submission Checks Completed
17 Nov 2022Assigned to Editor
18 Nov 2022Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
25 Nov 2022Reviewer(s) Assigned
23 Jan 2023Editorial Decision: Revise Major
10 Feb 20231st Revision Received
10 Feb 2023Submission Checks Completed
10 Feb 2023Assigned to Editor
10 Feb 2023Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
11 Feb 2023Reviewer(s) Assigned
04 Apr 2023Editorial Decision: Accept