Field deployment of an agricultural robot for informed sampling of soil apparent electrical conductivity using Aisle graphs

摘要

Existing approaches for measuring soil apparent electrical conductivity (ECa) of micro-irrigated orchards in arid and semi-arid environments are effective but time-consuming, especially because of the need to carry out sensor measurements under the tree canopies, an area that is hard to access by traditional means. Modelling agricultural fields as Aisle graphs can help automate sampling using mobile robots. In this work, a real-time planning algorithm was implemented on a wheeled robot for autonomously sampling at informed site-specific locations. Multiple sampling missions were executed for proximal sensing of ECa. The sparse and informed sampling approach was compared against continuous sampling, and high spatio-temporal correlation of about 89% was observed. This work advances autonomous ECa surveying in orchards.