Work Vehicle Route Generation for Narrow Headland Turns
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional route generation methods for autonomous work vehicles struggle to create appropriate routes in fields with narrow headlands, leading to potential deviation when turning is insufficient.
Innovation Solution
The method generates multiple straight routes for the work vehicle to travel in a first direction within a work area, accompanied by continuous movement routes in adjacent non-work areas, guiding the vehicle to each work route, allowing for efficient navigation without requiring a sufficient turning area.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If the work vehicle makes a turn in the headland area to finish work of the first crop row and enter the next crop row, then the vehicle can complete work routing, but the vehicle may deviate out of the field when the headland area is narrow and sufficient turning area cannot be secured
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transitions from traditional 2D planar routing to 3D spatial routing by utilizing vertical elevation changes. The work vehicle performs a bank turn (skid turn) that combines lateral movement with vertical banking, allowing the vehicle to change direction within a smaller horizontal footprint by leveraging the third dimension of space.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the turning parameters by allowing the vehicle to operate at inclined angles rather than maintaining a level position. By varying the banking angle and combining it with lateral displacement, the vehicle achieves turning capability in constrained spaces where conventional horizontal turning would cause field deviation.
2Device complexity
If conventional route generation methods are used, then the routing process is simple, but it is difficult to generate appropriate target routes for fields with narrow headland areas
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces dynamic routing that adapts to field geometry in real-time. Rather than using fixed conventional routing patterns, the system calculates optimized paths that dynamically adjust to the specific dimensions and constraints of each field, including narrow headland areas, enabling versatile adaptation across different field configurations.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary routing calculation layer that bridges conventional simple routing and complex adaptive routing. This intermediary system uses simplified geometric models and approximation algorithms to generate suitable routes for narrow fields without requiring full-blown complex path planning, thus maintaining reasonable computational simplicity while improving adaptability.
Data Source
AI summary
A route generation method executes generating a plurality of work routes where a work vehicle travels straight in a first direction that is a travel direction of the work vehicle, in a work area where a crop is arranged, generating a movement route that is a route continuous with the work route and that includes a straight route where the work vehicle travels straight, in a headland area adjacent to the work area in the first direction, in non-work areas surrounding the work area, where the crop is not arranged, and generating a movement route that is a single route continuous with the movement route and that guides the work vehicle to each of the plurality of work routes.