Path tracking control of autonomous agricultural mobile robots

In a tractor automatic navigation system, path planning plays a significant role in improving operation efficiency. This study aims to create a suboptimal reference course for headland turning of a robot tractor and design a path-tracking controller to guide the robot tractor along the reference course. A time-minimum suboptimal control method was used to generate the reference turning course based on the mechanical parameters of the test tractor. A path-tracking controller consisting of both feedforward and feedback component elements was also proposed. The feedforward component was directly determined by the desired steering angle of the current navigation point on the reference course, whereas the feedback component was derived from the designed optimal controller. Computer simulation and field tests were performed to validate the path-tracking performance. Field test results indicated that the robot tractor followed the reference courses precisely on flat meadow, with average and standard lateral deviations being 0.031 m and 0.086 m, respectively. However, the tracking error increased while operating on sloping meadow due to the employed vehicle kinematic model.