103 research outputs found

    A robotic platform for precision agriculture and applications

    Get PDF
    Agricultural techniques have been improved over the centuries to match with the growing demand of an increase in global population. Farming applications are facing new challenges to satisfy global needs and the recent technology advancements in terms of robotic platforms can be exploited. As the orchard management is one of the most challenging applications because of its tree structure and the required interaction with the environment, it was targeted also by the University of Bologna research group to provide a customized solution addressing new concept for agricultural vehicles. The result of this research has blossomed into a new lightweight tracked vehicle capable of performing autonomous navigation both in the open-filed scenario and while travelling inside orchards for what has been called in-row navigation. The mechanical design concept, together with customized software implementation has been detailed to highlight the strengths of the platform and some further improvements envisioned to improve the overall performances. Static stability testing has proved that the vehicle can withstand steep slopes scenarios. Some improvements have also been investigated to refine the estimation of the slippage that occurs during turning maneuvers and that is typical of skid-steering tracked vehicles. The software architecture has been implemented using the Robot Operating System (ROS) framework, so to exploit community available packages related to common and basic functions, such as sensor interfaces, while allowing dedicated custom implementation of the navigation algorithm developed. Real-world testing inside the university’s experimental orchards have proven the robustness and stability of the solution with more than 800 hours of fieldwork. The vehicle has also enabled a wide range of autonomous tasks such as spraying, mowing, and on-the-field data collection capabilities. The latter can be exploited to automatically estimate relevant orchard properties such as fruit counting and sizing, canopy properties estimation, and autonomous fruit harvesting with post-harvesting estimations.Le tecniche agricole sono state migliorate nel corso dei secoli per soddisfare la crescente domanda di aumento della popolazione mondiale. I recenti progressi tecnologici in termini di piattaforme robotiche possono essere sfruttati in questo contesto. Poiché la gestione del frutteto è una delle applicazioni più impegnative, a causa della sua struttura arborea e della necessaria interazione con l'ambiente, è stata oggetto di ricerca per fornire una soluzione personalizzata che sviluppi un nuovo concetto di veicolo agricolo. Il risultato si è concretizzato in un veicolo cingolato leggero, capace di effettuare una navigazione autonoma sia nello scenario di pieno campo che all'interno dei frutteti (navigazione interfilare). La progettazione meccanica, insieme all'implementazione del software, sono stati dettagliati per evidenziarne i punti di forza, accanto ad alcuni ulteriori miglioramenti previsti per incrementarne le prestazioni complessive. I test di stabilità statica hanno dimostrato che il veicolo può resistere a ripidi pendii. Sono stati inoltre studiati miglioramenti per affinare la stima dello slittamento che si verifica durante le manovre di svolta, tipico dei veicoli cingolati. L'architettura software è stata implementata utilizzando il framework Robot Operating System (ROS), in modo da sfruttare i pacchetti disponibili relativi a componenti base, come le interfacce dei sensori, e consentendo al contempo un'implementazione personalizzata degli algoritmi di navigazione sviluppati. I test in condizioni reali all'interno dei frutteti sperimentali dell'università hanno dimostrato la robustezza e la stabilità della soluzione con oltre 800 ore di lavoro sul campo. Il veicolo ha permesso di attivare e svolgere un'ampia gamma di attività agricole in maniera autonoma, come l'irrorazione, la falciatura e la raccolta di dati sul campo. Questi ultimi possono essere sfruttati per stimare automaticamente le proprietà più rilevanti del frutteto, come il conteggio e la calibratura dei frutti, la stima delle proprietà della chioma e la raccolta autonoma dei frutti con stime post-raccolta

    Separating bichromatic point sets in the plane by restricted orientation convex hulls

    Get PDF
    The version of record is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10898-022-01238-9We explore the separability of point sets in the plane by a restricted-orientation convex hull, which is an orientation-dependent, possibly disconnected, and non-convex enclosing shape that generalizes the convex hull. Let R and B be two disjoint sets of red and blue points in the plane, and O be a set of k=2 lines passing through the origin. We study the problem of computing the set of orientations of the lines of O for which the O-convex hull of R contains no points of B. For k=2 orthogonal lines we have the rectilinear convex hull. In optimal O(nlogn) time and O(n) space, n=|R|+|B|, we compute the set of rotation angles such that, after simultaneously rotating the lines of O around the origin in the same direction, the rectilinear convex hull of R contains no points of B. We generalize this result to the case where O is formed by k=2 lines with arbitrary orientations. In the counter-clockwise circular order of the lines of O, let ai be the angle required to clockwise rotate the ith line so it coincides with its successor. We solve the problem in this case in O(1/T·NlogN) time and O(1/T·N) space, where T=min{a1,…,ak} and N=max{k,|R|+|B|}. We finally consider the case in which O is formed by k=2 lines, one of the lines is fixed, and the second line rotates by an angle that goes from 0 to p. We show that this last case can also be solved in optimal O(nlogn) time and O(n) space, where n=|R|+|B|.Carlos Alegría: Research supported by MIUR Proj. “AHeAD” no 20174LF3T8. David Orden: Research supported by Project PID2019-104129GB-I00 / AEI / 10.13039/501100011033 of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. Carlos Seara: Research supported by Project PID2019-104129GB-I00 / AEI / 10.13039/501100011033 of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. Jorge Urrutia: Research supported in part by SEP-CONACYThis project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska–Curie Grant Agreement No 734922.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

    Predicting planetary rover mobility in reduced gravity using 1-g experiments

    Get PDF
    Traversing granular regolith, especially in reduced gravity environments, remains a potential challenge for wheeled rovers. Mitigating hazards for planetary rovers requires testing in representative environments, but direct Earth-based testing fails to account for the effect of reduced gravity on the soil itself. Here, experimental apparatus and techniques for reduced-gravity flight testing are used to systematically evaluate three existing Earth-based testing methods and develop guidelines for their use and interpretation: (i) reduced-weight testing, (ii) matching soil testing instrument response through soil simulant design, and (iii) granular scaling laws (GSL). Experimentation campaigns flying reduced-gravity parabolas, with soil and wheel both in lunar-g, have shown reductions in net traction of 20% or more and increases in sinkage of up to 40% compared to Earth-based testing methods (i) and (ii). Scaled-wheel testing, according to GSL (method iii) has shown better agreement with reduced-g tests (less than 10% error) and also tends to err on the side of conservative predictions. Limitations of GSL are investigated including a recently proposed cohesion constraint (that the wheel radius ratio must be the inverse of the gravity ratio) and the effects of wheel size and aspect ratio on GSL’s accuracy. It was found that the cohesion constraint can most likely be ignored for mildly cohesive soils such as lunar regolith. Limits on wheel sizes and aspect ratio variation are also proposed. The application of GSL to planetary rover testing is demonstrated through two studies undertaken in collaboration with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. One study compares wheel designs for a skid-steer lunar rover in single-wheel tests scaled by GSL, demonstrating that diagonal grousers improve turning performance without requiring larger wheels. The second study involves application of GSL to the design of two reconfigurable test platforms for evaluating steep-terrain mobility performance. Another aspect of rover mobility testing—normal force control in single-wheel testbeds—is also investigated. An improved method for single-wheel testing, using a 4-bar mechanism, essentially eliminates normal force oscillations from frictional vertical sliders. Finally, guidelines for conducting and interpreting 1-g mobility tests for lunar rovers are presented, and potential avenues for future research are outlined

    LIPIcs, Volume 248, ISAAC 2022, Complete Volume

    Get PDF
    LIPIcs, Volume 248, ISAAC 2022, Complete Volum

    The Dispersive Art Gallery Problem

    Get PDF
    We introduce a new variant of the art gallery problem that comes from safety issues. In this variant we are not interested in guard sets of smallest cardinality, but in guard sets with largest possible distances between these guards. To the best of our knowledge, this variant has not been considered before. We call it the Dispersive Art Gallery Problem. In particular, in the dispersive art gallery problem we are given a polygon ? and a real number ?, and want to decide whether ? has a guard set such that every pair of guards in this set is at least a distance of ? apart. In this paper, we study the vertex guard variant of this problem for the class of polyominoes. We consider rectangular visibility and distances as geodesics in the L?-metric. Our results are as follows. We give a (simple) thin polyomino such that every guard set has minimum pairwise distances of at most 3. On the positive side, we describe an algorithm that computes guard sets for simple polyominoes that match this upper bound, i.e., the algorithm constructs worst-case optimal solutions. We also study the computational complexity of computing guard sets that maximize the smallest distance between all pairs of guards within the guard sets. We prove that deciding whether there exists a guard set realizing a minimum pairwise distance for all pairs of guards of at least 5 in a given polyomino is NP-complete. We were also able to find an optimal dynamic programming approach that computes a guard set that maximizes the minimum pairwise distance between guards in tree-shaped polyominoes, i.e., computes optimal solutions; due to space constraints, details can be found in the full version of our paper [Christian Rieck and Christian Scheffer, 2022]. Because the shapes constructed in the NP-hardness reduction are thin as well (but have holes), this result completes the case for thin polyominoes

    Molecular Photochemistry

    Get PDF
    There have been various comprehensive and stand-alone text books on the introduction to Molecular Photochemistry which provide crystal clear concepts on fundamental issues. This book entitled "Molecular Photochemistry - Various Aspects" presents various advanced topics that inherently utilizes those core concepts/techniques to various advanced fields of photochemistry and are generally not available. The purpose of publication of this book is actually an effort to bring many such important topics clubbed together. The goal of this book is to familiarize both research scholars and post graduate students with recent advancement in various fields related to Photochemistry. The book is broadly divided in five parts: the photochemistry I) in solution, II) of metal oxides, III) in biology, IV) the computational aspects and V) applications. Each part provides unique aspect of photochemistry. These exciting chapters clearly indicate that the future of photochemistry like in any other burgeoning field is more exciting than the past
    • …
    corecore