Automatic guidance of a four-wheel-steering mobile robot for accurate field operations

• Authors: Christophe Cariou;Roland Lenain;Benoit Thuilot;Michel Berducat
• Venue: Journal of Field Robotics - Agricultural Robotics
• Year: 2009

As world population growth requires an increasing level of farm production at the same time that environmental preservation is a priority, the development of new agricultural tools and methods is required. In this framework, the development of robotic devices can provide an attractive solution, particularly in the field of autonomous vehicles. Accurate automatic guidance of mobile robots in farming constitutes a challenging problem for researchers, mainly due to the low grip conditions usually found in such a context. From assisted-steering systems to agricultural robotics, numerous control algorithms have been studied to achieve high-precision path tracking and have reached an accuracy within ±10 cm, whatever the ground configuration and the path to be followed. However, most existing approaches consider classical two-wheel-steering vehicles. Unfortunately, by using such a steering system, only the lateral deviation with respect to the path to be followed can be satisfactorily controlled. Indeed, the heading of the vehicle remains dependent on the grip conditions, and crabwise motions, for example, are systematically observed on a slippery slope, leading to inaccurate field operations. To tackle this drawback, a four-wheel-steering (4WS) mobile robot is considered, enabling servo of both lateral and angular deviations with respect to a desired trajectory. The path tracking control is designed using an extended kinematic representation, allowing account to be taken online of wheel skidding, while a backstepping approach permits management of the 4WS structure. The result is an approach taking advantage of both rear and front steering actuations to fully compensate for sliding effects during path tracking. Moreover, a predictive algorithm is developed in order to address delays induced by steering actuators, compensating for transient overshoots in curves. Experimental results demonstrate that despite sliding phenomena, the mobile robot is able to automatically and accurately achieve a desired path, with lateral and angular errors, respectively, within ±10 cm and ±2 deg, whatever its shape and whatever the terrain conditions. This constitutes a promising result in efforts to define efficient tools with which to tackle tomorrow's agriculture challenge. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.