Autonomous Tractor Navigation in Orchard - Diagnosis and Supervision for Enhanced Availability

Autonomous vehicles require a very high degree of availability and safety to become accepted by authorities and the public. Diagnosis and supervision are necessary means to achieve this. This paper investigates ways of using laser-scanner data to do localisation, and as a source of independent supervision, using expectation maximisation of laser-scanner output against uncertain map features. Analysis of system behaviours and their structure shows which redundant information is available to construct a supervisor. Tests on real life orchard data demonstrates the feasibility of the new approach.