Development and verification of a platform for agricultural robots in real-world environments

Abstract

Research and development efforts have aimed to achieve a digital transformation in agriculture, with many focusing on large-scale agriculture.Small-scale agriculture constitutes the majority of Japanese farming and remains a crucial area of research field.In this study, a platform for general-purpose small agricultural robots consisting of an application unit and a base unit is proposed.The application unit allows users to customize the functions of the robot according to their specific tasks.Harvesting and monitoring robots were developed, and experiments in various environments verified the performance of each function.These experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the platform, showing that it can provide functionality with minimal alterations.