@article{8bdef690a3da45e4b610894e79548cfc,
title = "Under canopy light detection and ranging-based autonomous navigation",
abstract = "This paper describes a light detection and ranging (LiDAR)-based autonomous navigation system for an ultralightweight ground robot in agricultural fields. The system is designed for reliable navigation under cluttered canopies using only a 2D Hokuyo UTM-30LX LiDAR sensor as the single source for perception. Its purpose is to ensure that the robot can navigate through rows of crops without damaging the plants in narrow row-based and high-leaf-cover semistructured crop plantations, such as corn (Zea mays) and sorghum (Sorghum bicolor). The key contribution of our work is a LiDAR-based navigation algorithm capable of rejecting outlying measurements in the point cloud due to plants in adjacent rows, low-hanging leaf cover or weeds. The algorithm addresses this challenge using a set of heuristics that are designed to filter out outlying measurements in a computationally efficient manner, and linear least squares are applied to estimate within-row distance using the filtered data. Moreover, a crucial step is the estimate validation, which is achieved through a heuristic that grades and validates the fitted row-lines based on current and previous information. The proposed LiDAR-based perception subsystem has been extensively tested in production/breeding corn and sorghum fields. In such variety of highly cluttered real field environments, the robot logged more than 6 km of autonomous run in straight rows. These results demonstrate highly promising advances to LiDAR-based navigation in realistic field environments for small under-canopy robots.",
keywords = "agriculture, perception, terrestrial robotics",
author = "Higuti, {Vitor A.H.} and Velasquez, {Andres E.B.} and Magalhaes, {Daniel Varela} and Marcelo Becker and Girish Chowdhary",
note = "Funding Information: Vitor A. H. Higuti was supported by Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) grant number 2017/00033‐7. Vitor was a visiting researcher at UIUC in Chowdhary{\textquoteright}s group during large portions of this study. Andres E. B. Velasquez was supported by Coordination of Superior Level Staff Improvement, Brazil (CAPES), Finance Code 001. The data, equipment, and facilities utilized in this study were partially supported by Fapesp grant number 2013/07276-1, the Advanced Research Projects Agency‐Energy Award Number DE‐AR0000598, NSF SBIR #1820332, and an award from the USDA/NIFA‐NSF joint CPS program. The authors thank DASLab (Distributed Autonomous Systems Laboratory directed by Chowdhary) members for their assistance in the development and testing of the robotic platform: Sri Vuppala Theja, Nolan Thomas Replogle, Benjamin C. Thompson, Beau Barber, Hunter Young and Dr. Erkan Kayacan. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. Funding Information: Sao Paulo Research Foundation (Fapesp), Grant/Award Number: 2017/00033‐7 2013/ 07276-1; Coordination of Superior Level Staff Improvement, Finance Code 001; NSF SBIR, Grant/Award Number: 1820332; Advanced Research Projects Agency ‐ Energy, Grant/ Award Number: DE‐ AR0000598 Funding Information: Vitor A. H. Higuti was supported by Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) grant number 2017/00033-7. Vitor was a visiting researcher at UIUC in Chowdhary?s group during large portions of this study. Andres E. B. Velasquez was supported by Coordination of Superior Level Staff Improvement, Brazil (CAPES), Finance Code 001. The data, equipment, and facilities utilized in this study were partially supported by Fapesp grant number 2013/07276-1, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy Award Number DE-AR0000598, NSF SBIR #1820332, and an award from the USDA/NIFA-NSF joint CPS program. The authors?thank DASLab (Distributed Autonomous Systems Laboratory directed by Chowdhary) members for their assistance in the development and testing of the robotic platform: Sri Vuppala Theja, Nolan Thomas Replogle, Benjamin C. Thompson, Beau Barber, Hunter Young and Dr. Erkan Kayacan. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.",
year = "2019",
month = may,
doi = "10.1002/rob.21852",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "36",
pages = "547--567",
journal = "Journal of Field Robotics",
issn = "1556-4959",
publisher = "John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.",
number = "3",
}