Development of a Robotic Fleet for Agriculture

Autonomous robots are becoming more common in different sectors, such as agriculture. The use of robots in harvesting allows to cut down human labor costs and makes performing of tasks more efficient. Multiple smaller harvesting robots can also cover more complex harvesting paths. Also, when using an electric robotic fleet instead of large traditional harvesting machines, transportation costs and environmental load are reduced. Thanks to its ability to grow rapidly, reed harvesting can be an effective solution to gain biomass for different applications and to partially replace raw materials that are traditionally made from wood. This study focused on the different challenges in development of a robotic fleet harvesting system and introduced a concept including recognition of the reed field visually and harvesting path planning. Therefore, this study guided towards further investigation and developing of an autonomous robot-based harvesting system that can be applied in agriculture.