Development Of An Information Collection Robot Body In Agricultural Fields

Information of crops and field environments are important for us to understand the growth characteristics, variations of the field status,and decision-making for field management. The traditional manual methods of information collection can not satisfy the demands of precise agriculture. A method of information collection in agricultural fields based on a tele-operated robot produces a new way. Operators can tele-operate a robot through a human-machine interface and collect field information with aboard sensors. This paper mainly accomplishes the development of the robot body.In this paper, a new type of field information collection robot with four-wheel parallel suspension was proposed. Obstacle-crossing mechanism and performance evaluation indexes were analyzed. Adjusting and steering function was discussed for precise control. In order to study the robot singularity, Jacobian matrix was obtained and ADAMS was employed to get the precise locations of the singularity loci, which are in accordance with the theoretical analysis.In ADAMS, the parametric virtual prototype was developed. Obstacle-crossing simulation shows that the robot has good terrain adapting ability. The DOE(design of experiment) of the multivariable robot was done to get an optimized robot.The robot physical prototype was developed using Pro/E and AutoCAD. The tele-operated moving test shows that this robot could run nimbly and keep the platform evenly, and shows that the mechanism was rationally designed.Finally, three proposals are presented. Firstly, reduce robot size based on simulation data. Secondly, improve parts to reduce vibration responses by vibration simulation in ADAMS/Vibration. Thirdly, co-simulation between ADAMS and MATLAB was explored. An adjusting control model based on fuzzy control theory was also established.