Path Planning and Control System Design of an Unmanned Weeding Robot

Tengxiang Yang, Chengqian Jin (), Youliang Ni, Zhen Liu and Man Chen
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Tengxiang Yang: Nanjing Institute of Agricultural Mechanization, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Nanjing 210014, China
Chengqian Jin: Nanjing Institute of Agricultural Mechanization, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Nanjing 210014, China
Youliang Ni: Nanjing Institute of Agricultural Mechanization, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Nanjing 210014, China
Zhen Liu: Nanjing Institute of Agricultural Mechanization, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Nanjing 210014, China
Man Chen: Nanjing Institute of Agricultural Mechanization, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Nanjing 210014, China

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-15

Abstract: Aiming at the demand by unmanned farms for unmanned operation in the entire process of field management, an unmanned plant protection robot for field management was developed based on a platform comprising a traditional high-clearance spray rod sprayer, integrated unmanned driving technology, image recognition technology, intelligent control technology, and precision operation technology. According to the agricultural machinery operation mode, agricultural machinery path planning, linear path tracking, and header path tracking algorithms were developed. Based on the overall structure and working principle of the chassis, the robot control system, steering control system, and operation control system were set. Based on the YOLOv5 image recognition algorithm, the crop–weed recognition model was developed. After 6000 rounds of training, the accuracy, recall, and mean average precision of the model were 87.7%, 84.5%, and 79.3%, respectively. Finally, a field experiment was carried out with the unmanned plant protection robot equipped with a complete system. Results show that the average lateral error of the robot is 0.036 m, the maximum lateral error is 0.2 m, the average root mean square error is 0.053 m, the average velocity error is 0.034 m/s, and the average root mean square error of velocity is 0.045 m/s when the robot works in a straight line. In weeding operations, the area ratio of weedy zones to field is 25%, which saves 75% of the herbicide compared to that dispensed in full spraying mode. The unmanned plant protection robot designed in this study effectively achieves machinery’s autonomous operation, providing valuable insights for research in unmanned farming and autonomous agricultural machinery.

Keywords: plant protection robot; agricultural navigation; path planning; weed identification; precision weeding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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