Development of Robot for 3D Measurement of Forest Environment

This paper describes the development of a robot that can move through a forest environment and automatically generates three-dimensional (3D) digital maps. We designed and constructed the robot, equipping it with a rocker-bogie mechanism composed of six drive wheels and four steering motors. This mechanics enables the robot to move damaging a forest as little as possible while negotiating the obstacle in it. This robot is equipped with a 3D light detection and ranging sensor, and it uses the normal distributions transform algorithm to construct 3D digital maps. We tested the generation of a 3D digital map of 50 m 2 of a sloped forest environment and verified the generated map by comparing it with a map constructed manually by engineers. The comparison revealed an error of less than 0.15 m.