This video presents the development and autonomous navigation in a row crop of a low-cost four wheel differential-drive field robot. The platform features a passive articulated suspension system, that allows the chassis to adapt to the ground morphology and its four drive wheels to remain in contact with the substrate when overcoming obstacles.
The vehicle's motion control system includes individual PID controllers for closed-loop regulation of the four wheels' velocity. The platform is equipped with various internal state sensors and perceives its external environment by using only one web camera, installed on a pan/tilt mechanism. The images acquired by the webcam are processed in real-time by an Odroid Single-Board Computer, implementing a fuzzy logic motion controller that allows autonomous traversing of a row crop.
The robot has been developed at the Control Systems and Robotics Laboratory of the Technological Educational Institute of Crete, in Heraklion, Greece.
Postgraduate student: Em. Kalykakis
Supervisor: Dr. Em. Kavoussanos