Autonomous Traveling Control of Crawler-Type Mobile Robot for Supporting Agricultural Work

This paper describes an autonomous human-following control algorithm for a crawler-type mobile robot that works with an agricultural worker. To support an agricultural worker harvesting and transporting crops, the robot must follow the worker. The robot reduces the burden on agricultural workers by transporting crops. Therefore, we have developed a crawler-type mobile robot. In order to detect the worker and identify its own position, the robot senses around itself using only a laser range finder as an environmental recognition sensor. We propose an autonomous human-following control algorithm that can follow the worker automatically. The usefulness of the proposed control algorithm is demonstrated by experimental results using our developed crawler-type mobile robot.