New trends in robotics for agriculture: integration and assessment of a real fleet of robots

(in lingua inglese)

Robotics and new technologies have begun to improve common practices in agriculture, such as increasing yield performance and decreasing the use of chemicals that may affect the environment. Furthermore, new robotics systems for application in agriculture are under development to permit the integration of different technologies while enabling modularity, flexibility, and adaptability. This paper presents a structure for agricultural vehicles to work both independently and in fleets, that is, simple, robust, and reliable. The general scheme exhibits advantageous features to quickly implement new vehicle controllers and develop/integrate advanced agricultural implements. Three examples are reported herein: a boom sprayer, a mechanicalthermal machine, and an airblast sprayer.