Development of track-driven agriculture robot with terrain classification functionality / Khairul Azmi Mahadhir

Over the past years, many robots have been devised to facilitate agricultural activities (that are labor-intensive in nature) so that they can carry out tasks such as crop care or selective harvesting with minimum human supervision. It is commonly observed that rapid change in terrain conditions can jeopardize the performance and efficiency of a robot when performing agricultural activity. For instance, a terrain covered with gravel produces high vibration to robot when traversing on the surface. In this work, an agricultural robot is embedded with machine learning algorithm based on Support Vector Machine (SVM). The aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of the Support Vector Machine in recognizing different terrain conditions in an agriculture field. A test bed equipped with a tracked-driven robot and three types o f terrain i.e. sand, gravel and vegetation has been developed. A small and low power MEMS accelerometer is integrated into the robot for measuring the vertical acceleration. In this experiment, the vibration signals resulted from the interaction between the robot and the different type of terrain were collected. An extensive experimental study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of SVM. The results in terms of accuracy of two machine learning techniques based on terrain classification are analyzed and compared. The results show that the robot that is equipped with an SVM can recognize different terrain conditions effectively. Such capability enables the robot to traverse across changing terrain conditions without being trapped in the field. Hence, this research work contributes to develop a self-adaptive agricultural robot in coping with different terrain conditions with minimum human supervision

Kinematic analysis on a mobile robot composed of three wheeled units

A mobile robot with three links on which the passive wheels are fixed is presented in this paper. This robot can move with two formation decided by the different connection between links and body of robot. This link is a type of joint mechanism called modular universal unit(MUU). The MUU behaves Pitching, Yawing and Rolling D.O.F. A series of passive rollers around the cylindrical aluminum shell of MUU form an actuating wheel for mobile robot. The communication and replacement are feasible due to high integration of MUU. The mobile robot consisting of three MUUs can move by winding the links or by driving links to rotate. The kinematic analysis of this robot is given to show its performance on mobility. Finally, some locomotion simulations are given to show characteristic of robots