Due to the complex environment in the field, using machine vision technology to enable the robot to travel autonomously was a challenging task. This study investigates a method based on mathematical morphology and Hough transformation for drip tape following by a two-wheeled robot trailer. First, an image processing technique was utilized to extract the drip tape in the image, including the selection of the region of interest (ROI), Red-Green-Blue (RGB) to Hue-Saturation-Value (HSV) color space conversion, color channel selection, Otsu’s binarization, and morphological operations. The line segments were obtained from the extracted drip tapes image by a Hough line transform operation. Next, the deviation angle between the line segment and the vertical line in the center of the image was estimated through the two-dimensional law of cosines. The steering control system could adjust the rotation speed of the left and right wheels of the robot to reduce the deviation angle, so that the robot could stably travel along the drip tape, including turning. The guiding performance was evaluated on the test path formed by a drip tape in the field. The experimental results show that the proposed method could achieve an average line detection rate of 97.3% and an average lateral error of 2.6 ± 1.1 cm, which was superior to other drip-tape-following methods combined with edge detection, such as Canny and Laplacian.
Abstract. This paper discusses a systematic vehicle design process in which light weight is taken as the vehicle design objective, and the designed frame is analyzed in detail. The load condition of a vehicle under different circumstances is calculated according to the distances from the front and rear wheels to the centroid position. The stress on the components in the condition is analyzed by finite element analysis, the steering geometry of the vehicle is analyzed, and the vehicle's turning angle and radius are designed. The displacement of the vehicle under a load is calculated by rigidity analysis to determine the stability of the vehicle in motion. The experimental modal analysis of the real frame and the finite element method are verified mutually for the electric vehicle body-in-white (BIW) manufacturing process to determine the consistency of model formation and the real frame. In terms of the circuit design, we used no-fuse switches and fuses to provide overcurrent protection for the main power supply, and the chip is combined with an optically coupled circuit and current sensor, which is driven by a restriction controller for protection. Moreover, a solid-state relay (SSR) is used for current protection and for controlling the forward/reverse rotation of the motor.
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