Development of Leader-Follower Tracked Vehicle for Agriculture - Convergence of Skid Steering and Pure Pursuit using β Compensation Coefficient -

Abstract

This paper proposes a design for a Leader-Follower tracked vehicle and its system architecture. The System consists of 3 parts: Perception, Navigation, and Control. Perception system is configured using a 1-channel LiDAR(light detection and ranging) and camera. By the use of these, Tracked vehicle recognizes the color of clothes who needs to be followed in various unstructured agricultural environments. Navigation system has been developed based on the concept of the Leader-Follower and the method of geometric path tracking (as studied in the robotics field). The vehicle can follow the Leader and be controlled by convergence of skid steering and pure pursuit (instead of using a complicated vehicle dynamics or land modeling process). The ultimate goal of this paper is explain the convergence process through formula and β compensation coefficient for steer is proposed for the formula. The β coefficient can compensate for the rotational ability of the vehicle without compensate modeling process. The influence of the β coefficient is investigated with actual tracked vehicle experiments.