Agricultural Mission Control for Accurate Path Resumption After Refills
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Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous agricultural vehicles face challenges in resuming tillage, fertilizing, and planting operations after interruptions, such as refueling, due to difficulties in accurately realigning with the previous stopping point, leading to wasted resources and uneven field coverage.
Innovation Solution
An electronic control system that receives signals indicative of a mission and change events, determines responses to facilitate mission completion, and outputs signals to adjust the vehicle's path of travel, enabling it to resume operations efficiently and optimize the path based on interruptions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If the vehicle leaves the field to refill storage tanks, then the vehicle can continue operations with sufficient resources, but it becomes difficult to accurately realign with the previous stopping point
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by continuously monitoring resource levels and automatically planning refill stops at predetermined locations before the vehicle runs out of resources. The mission control system calculates optimal refill points along the mission path, allowing the vehicle to refill at known locations and automatically resume the mission from the stored position data without manual realignment.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses feedback mechanisms by continuously tracking the vehicle's position, mission progress, and resource levels. When a refill is needed, the system receives feedback about current resource status and automatically adjusts the mission path to include refill stops at predetermined locations, then uses this feedback to resume the mission accurately after refilling.
2Productivity
If the vehicle manually realigns after returning to the field, then operations can resume, but time is lost and resource wastage occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs self-service by automatically managing mission resumption without operator intervention. The mission control system stores mission data and vehicle position information, automatically recalculates the remaining mission path after a refill stop, and guides the vehicle back to the correct position, eliminating the need for manual realignment and reducing both time loss and product wastage.
Solution Approach 2:
The system takes preliminary action by pre-storing mission path data and position information before leaving the field. This allows the vehicle to quickly resume operations by retrieving and continuing from the stored mission data, rather than requiring time-consuming manual realignment and path recalculation after returning.
3Reliability
If the vehicle refertilizes portions of the field, then coverage is ensured, but product is wasted
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses feedback to track the vehicle's position and mission completion status in real-time. By continuously monitoring progress along the mission path and comparing it against the stored mission plan, the system ensures that each portion of the field is treated exactly once, preventing both over-treatment (wastage) and under-treatment (gaps in coverage).
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary action by pre-planning the complete mission path and storing position data before operations begin. This allows the system to accurately track progress and ensure complete coverage without requiring refertilization, as the predetermined path ensures every portion of the field is reached exactly once.
Data Source
AI summary
A system includes an electronic control system for an agricultural system, including a controller configured to receive a first signal indicative of a mission of a work vehicle of the agricultural system. The controller is configured to determine a first desired path of travel of the work vehicle based on the mission. The controller is configured to output a second signal to the work vehicle indicative of the first desired path of travel, to receive a third signal indicative of a change event from the work vehicle or from an operator, to determine a response to the change event that facilitates completion of the mission, and to output a fourth signal indicative of the response to the work vehicle.