Abstract

In this paper, we present a new application of on-line trajectory planning for autonomous sprayers. The current generation of these vehicles use automatic controllers to maintain the height of the spraying booms above the crop. However, such systems are typically based on ultrasonic sensors mounted directly on the booms, which limits the
response of the controller to changes in the terrain, resulting in a suboptimal spraying process. To overcome these limitations, we propose to use 3D maps of the terrain ahead of the spraying booms based on laser range-fi�nder measurements combined with GPS-based localisation. Four different boom trajectory planning solutions which utilise the 3D maps are considered and their accuracy and real-time suitability is evaluated based on data collected from �field tests. The point optimisation and interpolation technique presents a practical solution demonstrating satisfactory performance under real-time constraints.