Title
Development of an Autonomous Forest Machine for Path Tracking
Abstract
In many respects traditional automation in the forest-machine industry has reached an upper limit, since the driver already has to deal with an excess of information and take too many decisions at a very high pace. To further automation still, introduction of semi-autonomous and autonomous functions axe expected and considered necessary. This paper describes an ongoing project along these ideas. We describe the development of the hardware and software of an unmanned shuttle that shifts timber from the area of felling to the main roads for further transportation. A new path-tracking algorithm is introduced, and demonstrated as being superior to standard techniques, such as Follow the Carrot and Pure Pursuit. To facilitate the research and development, a comprehensive software architecture for sensor and actuator interfacing is developed. Obstacle avoidance is accomplished by a new kind of radar, developed for and by the automotive industry. Localization is accomplished by combining data from a Real-Time Kinematic Differential GPS/GLONASS and odometry. Tests conducted on a simulator and a small-scale robot show promising results. Tests on the real forest machine are ongoing.
Year
DOI
Venue
2005
10.1007/978-3-540-33453-8_50
Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics
Keywords
Field
DocType
real time kinematic,software architecture,computer science,obstacle avoidance,automotive industry
Computer science,Simulation,Automation,Path tracking
Conference
Volume
ISSN
Citations 
25
1610-7438
6
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.62
2
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Thomas Hellström16410.98
Thomas Johansson260.62
Ola Ringdahl3244.24