Abstract
Autonomous robot-based orchard operations will become an alternative solution in the field of precision agriculture. One of the keys to robotic work is to achieve autonomous navigation that is as accurate as possible to ensure the most accurate working effect. In this work, we propose an orchard path fitting and navigation method based on the fusion of improved A-Star algorithm and Support Vector Machine Regression (SVR) to meet the requirements of autonomous navigation crawler platform for autonomous navigation in orchard environment and ensure accuracy. In this study, the actual speed and turning radius of the left and right tracks of the crawler platform were collected under 5 different slopes and 400 sets of different theoretical speed combinations of left and right tracks through the design nesting test, and the motion model of the crawler platform was constructed based on SVR. Orchard point cloud data were obtained by 3D solid-state LiDAR, and the improved A-star algorithm was used to fit the navigation path and calculate the turning curvature radius. Taking this curvature radius as the optimal navigation target value, the motion model predicts the optimal theoretical speed of left and right tracks, which is used as a reference for autonomous navigation. The comparison experiment of autonomous navigation was carried out in two modes: traditional and improved A-Star algorithm. The results show that the average values of the maximum lateral and longitudinal deviation of the improved automatic navigation method between orchards row are 6.90 cm and 9.88 cm, respectively. Compared with the method combined with the traditional A-Star algorithm and SVR, the values were 8.94 cm and 10.88 cm and were optimized by 29.57% and 10.12%, respectively. The autonomous navigation method proposed in this paper can meet the needs of orchards rows autonomous navigation, and can be widely applied to different orchard site environments (slope, ground obstacles, bad surface conditions), which can provide reference for the production practices of unmanned orchards.
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The data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
This research was financially supported by the National Key research and development Plan of China (Grant numbers 2019YFD1002401). We also thank our colleagues at the Northwest A&F University for the technical expertise and support that greatly aided this research.
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The National Key research and development Plan of China, 2019YFD1002401, Yongjie Cui.
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Wang, M., Xu, J., Zhang, J. et al. An autonomous navigation method for orchard rows based on a combination of an improved a-star algorithm and SVR. Precision Agric 25, 1429–1453 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11119-024-10118-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11119-024-10118-z