Development of Robot Tractor Associating with Human-drive Tractor for Farm Work

A single agricultural robot was developed to solve the problem of labor shortage; however, it cannot meet the demands as the farmland is becoming larger and larger. This article focused on a robot tractor associating with human-drive tractor system. A robot tractor is doing farm operation while a human-drive tractor following and doing different operation. Human can adjust the parameters of the robot by a microcontroller. To ensure safety, four cameras were mounted around the robot tractor, and the images of the cameras were sent through wireless video transmission system. Human can keep a watchful eye on the surroundings of the robot tractor. The results of the system indicated that the performance of the robot tractor behaves better than an experienced farmer driver, in the mean while the efficiency is increased compared with a single robot system.