A fleet of aerial and ground robots: a scalable approach for autonomous site-specific herbicide application

Abstract

The RHEA project (Robot Fleets for Highly Effective Agriculture and Forestry Management), funded by the 7th EC Framework Programme, focused on the configuration of a new generation of automated and robotic systems for both chemical and physical management of pests including weed control. RHEA addresses the crop treatments by a reconfigurable fleet of robots composed of unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) equipped with advanced perception systems, improved end-effectors and enhanced decision-making algorithms. This paper describes the most important aspects of the modules that integrate RHEA and gives some performance results extracted from the trials conducted at the CSIC Experimental Farm (Madrid, Spain), in particular the weed treatment in two winter wheat fields.