Researchers of the St. Petersburg Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPC RAS) jointly with scientists from Germany, Serbia and Turkey have created a robotic complex (a ground based service platform with a drone parked on it) that will help farmers to effectively perform various types of agricultural works (sowing and harvesting, cargo delivery, crops spraying and watering). The development will automate the implementation of various tasks in the agricultural sector of the economy, minimize humans’ efforts and increase their safety.
Today, robotics actively penetrates into various spheres of life and opens up great opportunities for enhancing labor productivity. In particular, representatives of the agro-industrial complex demonstrate a true interest in the use of robots. The machines possess great potential for sowing, harvesting, studying the terrain and landscape, high-precision fertilization and many other tasks.
However, for the robots application to the agricultural sector, it is necessary to develop ways of their effective use, interaction, and also it is necessary to create user-friendly and human-friendly management interfaces.
"We have developed an agricultural robotic platform, aimed at reducing the human efforts in various types of agricultural work. This complex of robots allows the user to save resources and time, at that, increasing the level of income, which is the main task in any economically costly production," says Anton Saveliev, Head of the Laboratory of Autonomous Robotic Systems at SPC RAS.
The developed model of the complex is a heterogeneous robot (consists of several different types of robots). The ground-based autonomous wheeled platform is capable of moving across various types of farmland, has a payload bay, power modules and a drone landing pad mounted on top.
For orientation on the terrain, the platform is equipped with a sensor system that allows for going around obstacles and impassable areas of the landscape. At the same time, for navigation, the complex uses both information from satellite systems (GLONASS) and data (photos, videos, audio, radio signals), promptly collected by the drone. To do so, the scientists of SPC RAS have developed algorithms for local navigation and interaction between robots. The heterogeneous robot is controlled through special algorithms for interaction and control of all components of the operator-platform-drone system based on intuitive solutions, for example, using gestures or voice. Thanks to the modular design, various types of chassis can be installed on the platform to increase cross-country ability and other mechanisms, depending on the tasks set.
"By equipping the platform with a system of irrigation or spot spraying with fertilizers, as well as a mechanism for sowing seeds, you can get a ground-based field assistant who will replace the human resource on hard tedious work. Its coordinator is an autonomous drone that analyzes the terrain and sends commands to the mobile platform with coordinates to move," adds Anton Saveliev.
During the project, the researchers also developed several application scenarios (strategies) for the joint use of ground platforms and drones to perform specific types of work. For example, monitoring of agricultural land, fruit harvesting with due account for cartograms of the yield of territories, accurate fertilization and some others.
"So, in the course of the project, together with international colleagues, and based on the fruit picking scenario, a model was developed and successfully tested as aimed at picking apples on an agricultural plot through the simultaneous use of a group of drones and ground platforms. Though, these scenarios can also be modified to perform any other agricultural tasks," explains Igor Lebedev, a Junior Researcher at the Laboratory of Autonomous Robotic Systems of SPC RAS.
In general, the universal models and algorithms of robot control developed during the project, as well as the organization of their interaction, can be used in the future to solve problems with the use of heterogeneous robots in other industries.
The development is the result of long-term work done by researchers of SPC RAS in the field of creating multi-purpose autonomous robotic platforms. The project is supported by the International Grant provided by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR Project No. 18-58-76001 ERA_a). The scientists from Germany (University of Telecommunications Leipzig), Serbia (Novi Sad University) and Turkey (Erzurum Technical University) participated in the project. The deliverables of this work were presented on December 9, 2021 in Moscow by Andrey Ronzhin, Director of SPC RAS, at the special meeting dedicated to the 10th Anniversary of successful cooperation between Russia and the EU in the field of research and innovations according to the RFBR projects.