Design and Implementation of a Novel Agricultural Robot with Multi-Modal Kinematics.

Robotics applied in agriculture is one of the most prosperous fields in modern technology. In this paper, we design and implement a novel agricultural robot FDU-AgRobot with multi-modal kinematics, making up for the shortage of personnel in a complex and changeable agrarian environment. Considering the low moving efficiency of the existing agricultural machinery, the FDU-AgRobot is an intelligent multi-modal agricultural robot driven by four-wheel independent steering and driving based on the modular design. This novel modular design enables the robot to have multi-modal kinematics characteristics, contributing to higher moving efficiency and less working space. In addition, we present six types of kinematics modalities while analyzing the kinematics characteristics and simplifying the corresponding mode algorithm. In the experiment, We apply the motion model on the robot with motion identification and multiple mode test; the results show that the robot can achieve the desired motion effect. This paper could be an indispensable theoretical and experimental research tool for the intelligent agricultural robot’s system design, demonstrating excellent adaptability to complex agricultural scenarios.