Software Architecture for Agricultural Robots (SAFAR)

The original Turf Trooper from Autoguide.

Screenshot from MRDS

Tomi.rar start up screens

A simple WMV movie (1.73MB) of the Tomi simulation can be downloaded here.

Tomi simulation with trees.

RoboTrac by the trees.

The SAVAGE robot in MRDS

To develop a set of designs, tools and resources to help promote the development of agricultural robots. All the the deliverables from this project will be published here and are in the public domain. If any of this work is used or published elsewhere, please let us know and acknowledge the sponsor - the Douglas Bomford Trust.

Details of these designs and results will be published here once we are happy with them.

Sponsor: The Douglas Bomford Trust

Hardware

A modified Turf Trooper grass cutter from Autoguide Ltd will be used as the base platform. All of the major MMIs (Steering, throttle, gearbox etc) will be retrofitted with actuators to allow computer control.

The control system using a XP vehicle computer will communicate with purpose made PICs that are closely coupled to their sensors and actuators by SolutionsForResearch.

Software

The overall architecture uses Microsoft Robotics Development Studio which can be downloaded here and is free for academic use. This is not an easy package to use as you need to be a skilled .NET programmer but it has a very good 3D simulator and the software framework is well defined. Download the files and install them all to the default directories.

We are in the process of developing models, modules, manifests etc to allow others to get a good head start in their development process. This work is being carried out by MobotSoft.

Compressed .RAR files that hold all the modified files can be downloaded and unpacked that will allow the simulation to run. Each file set has different characteristics. 

Development phases

Phase I + II

Simulate a number of 3D robots in a virtual world that can be controlled by a simple dashboard.

Phase III

This version includes the 4WD/4WS SAVAGE robot being built in Greece.

You can download a new version of the SAFAR simulation that includes Savage from here: www.mobotsoft.com/safar/SAFAR_MRDS2008_July_CTP.zip

It requires MRDS 2008 July CTP. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=57CE326B-2125-4163-A33F-ED2F69E03B56&displaylang=en)

 The instructions describing how to install and run the simulation are available at: http://www.mobotsoft.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52:safar-project&catid=38:safar&Itemid=59

 In this first version Savage does not work with the Route Following service yet. But you can drive it with the Dashboard. Note that you have two different modes to do it: rotational and non-rotational.

In the first case, you can control the translational speed and the rotational speed. The center of rotation is always located on the line perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the vehicle and that passes through its center. In the particular case when the Y coordinate of the dashboard sphere is 0, the robot rotates around its center.

In the second case, the rotational speed is always 0 and you can control the translational speed and the orientation angle, which is the same for the four wheels.

A small video of simulated Tomi cutting grass can be found here.
(3mb DivX codec)

Page updated August 2008