Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
BOSCH
10 m
Radar
Camera
3.5 m
BOSCH
0.5 m
Ultrasonic
sensor
3.5 m
5 m
Warning area
Dangerous area
FIGURE 2.20
Safety sensor for an agricultural robot vehicle.
cost increase and hinder the progress of robotization. There is a need for discussion
and consensus-building with regard to the sharing of responsibility between users
and manufacturers.
2.7 ROBOT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
One of the important elements of the robot farming system is a management system
for robots. A robot management system is developed based on an integrated agri-
cultural GIS commercialized by the Hitachi Solutions Ltd. (Yamagata, 2011). The
GIS can handle various types of data such as field information, crop type, soil type,
yields, quality, farmer's information, chemical cost, and fertilizer. Users can handle
the information through unified operations. This GIS-base robot management sys-
tem has a function of communicating with the robot vehicles about the status of work
such as work efficiency and the level of fuel, fertilizer, and chemicals contained in
each tank. The robot management system can also obtain crop information data from
the robot vehicles using a smart vision sensor explained in the next section. From this
information, a variable rate fertilizing map can be generated, and the control center
can send it back to the robot tractors for fertilization of the crops. Figure 2.21 shows
the mission plan map. Another function of the robot management system is the real-
time monitoring of the robot vehicles while in working condition. In the case of the
combine harvester robot, each field is colored according to its harvest status: not
harvested, now harvesting, or harvested. Using this management system, the current
