Development of leader-follower system for field work

Two robot tractors were used in a leader-follower system for agricultural field work. Each of the robots was fully independent and could conduct field work alone. They could also work together to form a certain spatial arrangement during the operation. During the headland turn, each robot was simplified as a rectangular zone, and the two robots cooperated and coordinated to turn to next path without collision. This system was designed for practical application, and the system gains the ability to tolerate most of the disturbances in a real field. Fault tolerant methods in accordance with agricultural work were illustrated to solve the common disturbances from the GPS and the IMU. Field experiments were conducted to determine the effectiveness of the system. The results of the experiments showed that the two robot tractors can work safely together to complete the field work. The average lateral error of the navigation system of the robots was less than 0.04 m, and the efficiency of the leader-follower system was improved by 84.3 percent compared with that of a conventional single robot.