A systematic approach to the development of long-term autonomous robotic systems for agriculture

Abstract

For robots to compete with conventional machinery in agriculture, improving their long-term autonomy seems necessary. In this article, we provide concepts and intermediate results of our work aimed at a long-term autonomous robotic system performing a plant monitoring task. Based on notions from literature, we introduce a structured approach to defining long-term autonomy and report on the system we develop that meets this definition in practical experiments. Finally, we present intermediate results from simulation and discuss further avenues of research.