Path-Following Control of a Head-Feeding Combine Robot

The study aims to apply an autonomous path-following control for a head-feeding combine robot. A real-time kinematic global positioning system (RTK-GPS) and a GPS compass are used as navigation sensors. These sensors provide the combine robot with the position and heading information required to steer along a target path. To control steering, we applied a Kalman filter that estimates the lateral and heading errors contained in the position, heading, and traveling-speed data. Through field experiments, we demonstrated that the combine robot is capable of automatically following a target spiral path and harvesting rice crops.