TY  - CHAP
ID  - moreno2014elr
T1  - Evaluation of laser range-finder mapping for agricultural spraying vehicles
A1  - Moreno, Francisco-Angel
A1  - Cielniak, Grzegorz
A1  - Duckett, Tom
TI  - Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems
T3  - LNCS (from Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems)
Y1  - 2014
VL  - 8069
SP  - 210
EP  - 221
PB  - Springer Berlin Heidelber
SN  - 978-3-662-43645-5
M2  - doi: 10.1007/978-3-662-43645-5_22
KW  - 3d terrain reconstruction
KW  - Agri-robotics
KW  - Outdoor mapping
N2  - In this paper, we present a new application of laser range-finder sensing to agricultural spraying vehicles. The current generation of spraying vehicles use automatic controllers to maintain the height of the sprayer booms above the crop. However, these control systems are typically based on ultrasonic sensors mounted on the booms, which limits the accuracy of the measurements and the response of the controller to changes in the terrain, resulting in a sub-optimal spraying process. To overcome these limitations, we propose to use a laser scanner, attached to the front of the sprayer’s cabin, to scan the ground surface in front of the vehicle and to build a scrolling 3d map of the terrain. We evaluate the proposed solution in a series of field tests, demonstrating that the approach provides a more detailed and accurate representation of the environment than the current sonar-based solution, and which can lead to the development of more efficient boom control systems.
ER  -