Advanced Harvesting System by using a Combine Robot

The study aims to construct an advanced harvesting system by using a combine robot. The advanced harvesting system means an integral system that monitors and manages the robot remotely. We remodeled a head-feeding combine into a robot so as to harvest rice crops along a target path. A real-time kinematic global positioning system (RTK-GPS) and a GPS compass are used as navigation sensors. These sensors provide the combine robot with the position and heading information required to steer along a target path. To control steering, we applied a Kalman filter that estimates the lateral and heading errors. In addition, a web application was developed to monitor the combine robot remotely while working in the field. We conducted experiments of harvesting rice crop in fields. Through field experiments, we demonstrated that the combine robot is capable of automatically following a target spiral path and harvesting rice crops. At the same time, the information of the position and operational status of the combine was able to be monitored by the web application.