This review reports the recent state of the art in the field of mobile robots applied to precision agriculture. After a brief introduction to precision agriculture, the review focuses on two main topics. First, it provides a broad overview of the most widely used technologies in agriculture related to crop, field, and soil monitoring. Second, the main robotic solutions, with a focus on land-based robots, and their salient features are described. Finally, a short case study about a robot developed by the authors is introduced. This work aims to collect and highlight the most significant trends in research on robotics applied to agriculture. This review shows that the most studied perception solutions are those based on vision and cloud point detection and, following the same trend, most robotic solutions are small robots dedicated exclusively to monitoring tasks. However, the robotisation of other agricultural tasks is growing.
In the last decades, mobile robotics has become a very interesting research topic in the field of robotics, mainly because of population ageing and the recent pandemic emergency caused by Covid-19. Against this context, the paper presents an overview on wheeled mobile robot (WMR), which have a central role in nowadays scenario. In particular, the paper describes the most commonly adopted locomotion strategies, perception systems, control architectures and navigation approaches. After having analyzed the state of the art, this paper focuses on the kinematics of three omnidirectional platforms: a four mecanum wheels robot (4WD), a three omni wheel platform (3WD) and a two swerve-drive system (2SWD). Through a dimensionless approach, these three platforms are compared to understand how their mobility is affected by the wheel speed limitations that are present in every practical application. This original comparison has not been already presented by the literature and it can be used to improve our understanding of the kinematics of these mobile robots and to guide the selection of the most appropriate locomotion system according to the specific application.
Thanks to recent developments in service robotics technologies, precision agriculture (PA) is becoming an increasingly prominent research field, and several studies were made to present and outline how the use of mobile robotic systems can help and improve farm production. In this paper, the integration of a custom-designed mobile base with a commercial robotic arm is presented, showing the functionality and features of the overall system for crop monitoring and sampling. To this aim, the motion planning problem is addressed, developing a tailored algorithm based on the so-called manipulability index, that treats the base and robotic arm mobility as two independent degrees of motion; also developing an open source closed-form inverse kinematics algorithm for the kinematically redundant manipulator. The presented methods and sub-system, even though strictly related to a specific mobile manipulator system, can be adapted not only to PA applications where a mobile manipulator is involved but also to the wider field of assistive robotics.
In recent years, the study of robotic systems for agriculture, a modern research field often shortened as “precision agriculture”, has become highly relevant, especially for those repetitive actions that can be automated thanks to innovative robotic solutions. This paper presents the kinematic model and a motion planning pipeline for a mobile manipulator specifically designed for precision agriculture applications, such as crop sampling and monitoring, formed by a novel articulated mobile base and a commercial collaborative manipulator with seven degrees of freedom. Starting from the models of the two subsystems, characterized by an adjustable position and orientation of the manipulator with respect to the mobile base, the linear mapping that describes the differential kinematics of the whole custom system is expressed as a function of the input commands. To perform pick–and–place tasks, a motion planning algorithm, based on the manipulator manipulability index mapping and a closed form inverse kinematics solution is presented. The motion of the system is based on the decoupling of the base and the arm mobility, and the paper discusses how the base can be properly used for manipulator positioning purposes. The closed form inverse kinematics solution is also provided as an open-source Matlab code.
The use of robotic technologies for caregiving and assistance has become a very interesting research topic in the field of robotics. Towards this goal, the researchers at Politecnico di Torino are developing robotic solutions for indoor assistance. This paper presents the D.O.T. PAQUITOP project, which aims at developing a mobile robotic assistant for the hospital environment. The mobile robot is composed of a custom omnidirectional platform, named PAQUITOP, a commercial 6 dof robotic arm, sensors for monitoring vital signs in patients, and a tablet to interact with the patient. To prove the effectiveness of this solution, preliminary tests were conducted with success in the laboratories of Politecnico di Torino and, thanks to the collaboration with the Onlus Fondazione D.O.T. and the medical staff of Molinette Hospital in Turin (Italy), at the hematology ward of Molinette Hospital.
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