Path Following Control for Head-feeding Combine Robot

Abstract

The objective of this research is autonomous path following control for head-feeding combine robot, especially improvement of turning control. An RTK-GPS and a GPS compass are used as navigation sensor. The combine robot obtains its position and heading angle information from them to go straight and turn along target path. Kalman filter estimates lateral and heading angle errors from data of position, heading and traveling speed for steering control. In the experiment, the combine robot followed spiral path harvesting rice. And then, lateral error, heading angle error and the size of space required for the turn control were evaluated. The rms lateral error was observed to be less than 0.06m and the rms heading angle error was less than 2.35 degree in the straight path. The average lateral and heading error in the turning control were 0.13m and -2.49 degree, respectively. The size of space required for the turn control was 4.4m×4.5m. It is almost equivalent to the operation by human.