Controller for Single Line Tracking Autonomous Guidance Vehicle Using Machine Vision

AMachine vision is a promising tool for the autonomous guidance of farm machinery. Conventional CCD camera for the machine vision needs a desktop PC to install a frame grabber, however, a web camera is ready to use when plugged in the USB port. A web camera with a notebook PC can replace existing camera system. Autonomous steering control system of this research was intended to be used for combine harvester. If the web camera can recognize cut/uncut edge of crop, which will be the reference for steering control, then the position of the machine can be determined in terms of lateral offset and heading angle. In this research, a white line was used as a cut/uncut edge of crop for steering control. Image processing algorithm including capturing image in the web camera was developed to determine the desired travel path. An experimental vehicle was constructed to evaluate the system performance. Since the vehicle adopted differential drive steering mechanism, it is steered by the difference of rotation speed between left and right wheels. According to the position of vehicle, the steering algorithm was developed as well. Evaluation tests showed that the experimental vehicle could travel within an RMS error of 0.8cm along the desired path at the ground speed of $9\sim41cm/s$. Even when the vehicle started with initial offsets or tilted heading angle, it could move quickly to track the desired path after traveling $1.52\sim3.5m$. For turning section, i.e., the curved path with curvature of 3 m, the vehicle completed its turning securely.